They point out that
all our sensations correspond to changes of energy, and that
everything apparent to our senses is, in truth, energy. The famous
experiment of the blows with a stick by which it was demonstrated to a
sceptical philosopher that an outer world existed, only proves, in
reality, the existence of energy, and not that of matter. The stick in
itself is inoffensive, as Professor Ostwald remarks, and it is its
_vis viva_, its kinetic energy, which is painful to us; while if we
possessed a speed equal to its own, moving in the same direction, it
would no longer exist so far as our sense of touch is concerned.
[Footnote 5: "Nothing is created; nothing is lost"--ED.]
On this hypothesis, matter would only be the capacity for kinetic
energy, its pretended impenetrability energy of volume, and its weight
energy of position in the particular form which presents itself in
universal gravitation; nay, space itself would only be known to us by
the expenditure of energy necessary to penetrate it. Thus in all
physical phenomena we should only have to regard the quantities of
energy brought into play, and all the equations which link the
phenomena to one another would have no meaning but when they apply to
exchanges of energy.
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