 For the philosophical implications of Helmholtz’s work on the conservation of energy, see Bevilacqua (1993) and Hyder (2006 and 2009). Bevilacqua investigates two matters: Hemholtz’s synthesis of earlier work into a single principle, and his methodological distinction, evident in the above citation, between theoretical and experimental physics. Hyder investigates Helmholtz’s argument in the essay that “force functions must be definable with regard only to the relative positions of the mass-points comprising a physical system” (Hyder 2006, 1). Marshalling the Kantian antecedents of the argument, Hyder maintains that Helmholtz’s response to criticisms of “On the Conservation of Force” by Clausius in 1854 influenced Helmholtz’s later work on geometry. Hyder 2009 is an analysis of Helmholtz’s “radical critique” of Kantian geometry in the context of Helmholtz’s retention of a “transcendental element” in physics, especially with respect to the relationship between geometry and empirical determinacy (p. 19).