But if it be granted, on the other hand, that the will is a physical energy, we immediately encounter certain difficulties which must not be ignored. In the first place, if the will be a physical energy, it is subject to the law of Conservation, and, consequently, must be included within the cycle of forces which that law encompasses. Light, heat, chemical affinity, etc., are supposed to be mutually convertible and transmutable; and, according to the present hypothesis, Will must also be included in this series! But every energy we know in the physical universe is a non-intelligent energy, and, as I have pointed out elsewhere, if we make the human will thus subject to the law of Conservation, it seems to form a unique exception to the law. For we know (if our consciousness tells us anything) that willing is an intelligent act, and we should consequently have this conscious act or intent left over in the equation. For we have, in all other cases, purely physical energy, and in this case physical energy _plus something_ (conscious intent). The law of Conservation tells us that one energy is derived from another, and is converted again into another form of physical energy, when it is expended. But if will, _ex hypothesi_ a physical energy, is derived from another physical energy (by a process of combustion, or what you will), we have here a case of the lesser including the greater--of a thing giving rise to something greater and more inclusive than itself--which is contrary to all accepted thinking. The will, therefore, cannot be _entirely_ subject to the law of Conservation, but appears to draw upon an additional fund or source of energy, which is infused into it, as it were, from without. This "thing" which is infused or super-added, this "something" which is the "plus" in our equation, appears to be the directive element, the life element, the sentient element--which is thus shown to lie outside the law of Conservation, as many physicists and philosophers (Lodge, Crookes, Bergson, etc.) have for some time past contended it must or might lie.
One significant fact, in this connection, is that while the law of Conservation is doubtless true, so far as it goes, there is also in operation another law, well known to physicists, called the law of the Degradation of Energy, which asserts that energies of a higher order are constantly being converted into energies of a lower order. This law maintains that energies of a lower order cannot be reconverted into energies of a higher order. All other energies are being slowly but surely converted into heat--the lowest of all forms of energy. And this heat is gradually being dissipated, or radiated away, into space, so that, at some distant day, our universe will be cold and lifeless, like the moon.