The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-08-04
KINETIC STABILITY.
By ROBERT STEVENSON.
FIRST PAPER.

accepted as proven truth in biological
sciences.
So long as such errors continue as a
menace to progress, so long will there con-
tlnue to be such revolutionary leaders as
Copernicus, Bruno, Gallileo, Newton.
Boyle, Davy, Faraday and Darwin, and
host of others who may well be designated
the pioneers and pathfnders of science,
as Columbus, Cook, Livingstone and 9TH
ers were the discoveries and pathfinders OF
unknown regions and continents. And so
long as mistaken Identity exists there will
always be found a force of intelligence to
discover the error and develop the truth.
Thanks to the freedom of the press and
the throbbing intelligence which perme-
ates it, publicity has become a universal
agent in the diffusion of truth and the dis
persion of error.
Although the professors of technical
science think the public are unable to COM
prehend the mysteries of their craft and
to add to the difficulty have invented sys-
TENS of symbolical language, which none
but q trained expert can follow, yet think
it can be shown that the English language
is comprehensive and definite enough to
give correct ideas of all that science can
teach; and that the readers of daily news
paper will not only understand but appre-
ciate the effort to communicate such intel
igence in a form which they can relish
and digest
Since publishing the pamphlet explain
ing in popular language what conceive
to be the true and proximate cause OF CRAWL
tation, as I before remarked, have had
many inquiries for further simplltlcatlon
and elucidation of the subject.
To do that requires considerable space.
as we have to begin with the alphabet OF
motion, explaining and defining tbs cor
on%f I0ae foJr1 dc oT0d W
sions convey to the mind and so building
up the facts with the definitions and the
demonstrations until we reach that place
in the great temple of science where the
discovery fits, and where we hope it will
continue to remain through all ages.
Now although "kinetic stability" is a
well known and old established term in
mechanical science, yet its function as an
active agent in natural phenomena was
only discovered as the result of an almost
exhaustive analysis by the higher mathe-
MATES, and so much beyond the compre-
hension of the ordinary student that even
Thomson and TAFT in their great standard
work on natural philosophy only mention
it as something requiring for its explica-
ton such complicated symbolical express
sions as make it difficult for the mind of
man to follow.
On the other hand my discovery places
the kinetic stability of the mathematician
in new and simpler form, and shows it
to be not only one of the simplest but also
one of the most important OF all the latent
forces of the universe.
1t is the proximate source of the ICON
servation of energy" the foundation of
'the potential" the producer of universal
stability. and the cause of gravity. On
it depend for their correct solution such
problems as the molecular constitution of
bodies, the production of planetary sys-
Ill
among the molecules of matter which gen.
crate and convey heat. light and electricity
in the material world; while in organized
bodies the same principle acts by means of
the survival of the most stable forms in
producing that rate OF vital progress which
is designated by the name Evolution.
So evolution in the organic world bears
the same relation to vital or kinetic stabil-
ity which acceleration in the mechanical
world bears to kinetic stability. They
simply express the law of its action.
Evolution, then, expresses the rate of
change in organism, portion OF whose
kinetie stability has been converted into
potential energy.
The acceleration of motion in natural
phenomena is the rate of change of velocity
due to the potential of a mass which had
kinetic stability.
That law in the spiritual world which
corresponds with those two great laws in
the natural world has yet to be found ana
established on scientific basis, but there
are reasons to believe that the Christ of
the Scriptures knew of that law when he
told his disciples that if they had it to the
extent of a grain of mustard seed they
could remove mountains. In the transla-
ton it is called "faith," but it evidently
must be different faith from that which
doubt can destroy; it meant poten-
tial power in the soul, whose method of
doing work and producing spiritual phe-
nomena will some day be reduced to law
of action as answering in its results and
as capable of being understood and utilized
by the human race as either of those other
two great laws on which depends all our
power OF controlling and directing the
material and vital forces of nature. In
the papers to follow ON "Kinetic Stability"
We will try by analogy to rediscover and
enunciate that important law in the spir-
itual world, to establish the truth OF which
the Son of God became man and mani
tested himself to the world.
ROBERT STEVENSON,
2607 Fillmore street, San Francisco.