  It has been suggested that in the 1890s “the adherents of energetics reigned supreme in the German school and even throughout Europe” (Dugas 1959, 82). But this is surely a great exaggeration. It seems closer to the truth to say that energetics represented a rather small (but vocal) minority in the physics community, that claimed to put forward a seemingly attractive conception of natural science, and being promoted in the mid-90s by reputed scientists, could no longer be dismissed as the work of amateurs (cf. Deltete 1999).