§ 7. The Principle of the Conservation of Energy.
In all that precedes, the principle of conservation has
intervened at every step. In fact, the very idea of
energy is connected with the existence of this principle.
We first discover the idea in the work of the philosophical
mathematicians who established the foundations
of mechanics:—Newton, Leibniz, d'Alembert,
and Helmholtz; or of inductive physicists such as
Lord Kelvin. Its experimental proof, sketched by
Marc Seguin and R. Mayer, is due to Colding and
Joule.
It is Independent of the Kinetic Theory.—Mayer's law states that energy is indestructible; that all phenomenality is nothing but a transformation of energy from one form to another, and that this transformation takes place either at equal values, or rather, at a certain rate of equivalence. This is what takes place when thermal energy is transformed into mechanical energy (equivalent 425). This rate of equivalence is fixed by the researches of physicists for each category of energy.
It will be noticed that this law and this theory of energy, which is always presented by authors of elementary books as a consequence of the kinetic theory, is quite independent of it. In the preceding lines we have not even mentioned its name. We have not assumed that all phenomena are movements or transformations of movements, whether sensible or vibratory; we have not affirmed that what was passing from one phenomenal determination to another was the vis viva of the motion, as is the case
