In human thermodynamics, Léon Winiarski (1865-1915) was a Polish economist and sociologist noted for his 1898 "Essay on Social Mechanics", and 313-page book by the same name, and for teaching a course, over a period of six years (1894-1900), called “social mechanics”, at the University of Geneva, where he appllied the dynamics of Italian mathematician Joseph Lagrange and the thermodynamics of German physicist Rudolf Clausius in sociology and economics. [1] Winiarski held the view that: [10]

“A social aggregate is nothing but a system of points, i.e. individuals, who are in perpetual movement of approaching or withdrawing from one another.”

Winiarski treated human societies in terms of energy, discussed social systems in terms of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and used differential equations to describe certain social processes. [2] He has been classified as one of the representatives of “energetic theory” in sociology. [4] Most of his works were published in French (having limited translations), which may explain why he is not as well known in modern times.

Ward
In America, the work of Winiarski seems to have been influentual to American sociologist Lester Ward, author of the 1883 book Dynamic Sociology. To give an indication of this, in his 1918 book Glimpses of the Cosmos, Ward opens to the following quote by Winarski, which he categorizes as the “difference of potential” transformative principle of sociology:

“The forces of work, system kinetic energy will be equal to the differences of the potential energies. To ensure the transformation of the active forces of the biological energies, unrealised potential processing takes place, it must be between comprizing breeds in a social aggregate, where there is a difference in potential. All the differences in these potential energies go into energy kinetic—but the total energy remains unchanging during processing; there is only a change in form.” – Leon Winiarski (date)

Through the application of the branches of mathematical physics to sociology, such as found in the above quote, according to Ward, Winiarski was the world's first mathematical sociologist. [3]

Name translations
Winiarski was born in Poland, but taught and worked at the primarily French-speaking University of Geneva, Switzerland, which is next to Italy and France, hence his publications seem to be only in French, Italian, and Polish, in descending order. [13] An English variant of his last name is "Winiarsky" (as used by Ward). A Spanish and Italian variant of his first name is "Leone". [8] In his 1900 biographical book on American sociologist William Morris, he goes by the name "Leona Winiarskiego". [11]

Education
In 1886, at the age of twenty-one, Winiarski was a student at Warsaw University, where probably with the help of his brother Wolf Winiarski, tried to keep up the tradition of spreading Marxist ideas among the first Polish scientists. He authored two pamphlets of this kind: “About Cries and their Sources” and “On Supplementary Values”, being a popularization of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. [12] Of greatest influence, Winiarski a pupil of French-Italian engineer Vilfredo Pareto, one of the first to conceive of people as "human molecules", who himself had been a student of French economist Léon Walras, the first to conceive of people as "economic molecules". Walras and Winiarski exchanged letters in the discussion of ideas; at least in 1899. [7]

Social mechanics
To cite an overview of Winiarski’s teachings, at the 1900 Sociology at the Paris Exposition, after referring to the earlier works of Lagrange, and his general equations of motion, and to Walras, and his general theory of economic equilibrium, Winiarski gives the following synopsis of his teaching, over the previous six-years, of the application of mechanics and thermodynamics in the social science: [4]

“Having furnished the equations of social equilibrium, we have laid the foundations for social mechanics—on its static side—on the principle of Lagrange, that of least effort or greatest energy, i.e. on the principle that serves as the basis of cosmic mechanics. Passing to the dynamic side of the problem, we have given a definition of socio-biologic energy in the two following forms: Potential (hunger and love) and kinetic (economic, political, juridical, moral, esthetic, religious, and scientific). This led us to the application of the principles of thermodynamics, the third of which, that of Clausius, explains at the same time the gradual spiritualization of every closed social aggregate and the lowering of its potential. It is the dissipation of the entropy which takes place in the social world as in the physical world.”

Winiarski noted further that their researchers in social mechanics were published in the Revue Philosophique (March, 1898) under the title: “Essai sur la mechique sociale” ("Essay on Social Mechanics"), which consisted of three parts: [5]

(a) Equilibrium and social economics (L’equilibre economieque et social)
(b) The transformations of social energy (Les transformations of de l’energie sociale)
(c) Social dynamics (La dynamique sociale)

The second part referring to “transformations” would seem to indicate that Winiarski was utilizing Clausius’ logic of equivalence values of uncompensated transformations (transformation-equivalents), an early variation type of description of entropy.

The above quotation, to note, indicates that Winiarski had a well-advanced mind on the subject of human thermodynamics, more so than most modern researches on the same topic at present.

Aesthetic / biological / social energy

See main: Aesthetic energy

Winiarski seems to have had views on the relationships between aesthetics, energy, and equilibrium points in life, as published in his 36-page 1899 article "Aesthetic Equilibrium". [14] Winiarski argued that beauty, in respect to those nervous system movements that result in attraction movements, is a function of “aesthetic energy”, i.e. the energy correspondent to movements towards objects of beauty, and to “biological energy”. To cite an example, Winiarski affirmed that: [9]

“The prices of commodities represent nothing but the various conversion coefficients of biological energy: gold is therefore the general social equivalent, the pure personification and incarnation of socio-biological energy.”

In a sense, movements, such as the making of arms, dwellings, ornaments, sculpture, painting, music, or architecture, etc., as they connect to the possessions of strength, objects of wealth, or the development of skills in the arts or sciences, actuate such that the individual or race who wishes to attain a higher position in the class structure does so according to the intensity or duration of the pleasure given from the process. In an 1899 review of Winiarski’s work, an F. M. Winger states, according to Winiarski’s theory: [6]

“Periods of maximum pleasure are followed and preceded by a period of equilibrium, and just so much pleasure results as there has been energy expended.”

In a modern sense, it would seem that this period of maximum pleasure would correspond to the heightened energy state (activation energy) in the range of the transition state of reactants going to products, between two lower saddle points of minimal free energy (thermodynamic equilibrium).

Objections
In 1911, in commentary on Winiarski’s view that “selfishness and altruism are both manifestations of elementary biological energy as attraction and repulsion are of cosmic energy; biological energy is directed into each individual and each group of individuals by the tendency to maximize pleasure and happiness”, American sociologist Luther Lee Bernard comments that: [15]

“Winiarski has gone to the metaphysically ridiculous in attempting to establish an identity between biologic energy and feeling consciousness, thus reducing ‘egoism’ and ‘altruism’ to actual social forces, akin to the physical forces, which will enable us to formulate an exact science of sociology.”

References
1. (a) Winiarski, Leon (1865-1915) - L'enseignement de l'economie politique pure et de la mecanique sociale en Suisse (The teaching of pure economics and politics of social mechanisms in Switzerland) (1900). Paris: F. Alcan.
(b) Pareto, Vilfredo. (1896-97). Cours d’Économie politique… Tome premier [– second]. Lausanne, F. Rouge.
2. Ghurye, Govind S. and Kapadia, Kanaiyala M. (1954). Professor Ghurye Felicitation Volume (pg. 6). Popular Book Depot.
2. Ward, Lester F. (1907). Pure Sociology (keyword: “Léon Winiarski”, pgs. 145, 166, 388-89, 606). MacMillan.
3. Winiarsky, Léon. (1900). “The Teaching of Pure Political Economy and Social Mechanics in Switzerland”, Report of, (pgs. 1496-1500) in Ward, Lester F. (1901). Sociology at the Paris Exposition of 1900. Government Printing Office.
4. Anon. (1968). “Title” (pg. 162), East European Quarterly. Vol 2. University of Colorado (Boulder).
5. Sanger, C.P. (1898). “Work Reviewed: Winiarski, Dr. Léon, Essai sur la Mécanique Social (Essay on Social Mechanics)”. The Economic Journal (pgs. 387-88). MacMillan.
6. Winger, F. M. (1899). “Summary of Article: L’équilibre Esthétique (Aesthetic Equilibrium). Dr. Léon Winiarski.” Rev. Ph. 6, XXIV, (pgs. 569-605) in The Philosophical Review (pg. 649). Cornell University.
7. Walker, Donald A. (1893). William Jaffe’s Essays on Walras (pg. 201). Cambridge University Press.
8. Fernández-Galiano, Luis. (2000). Fire and Memory: On Architecture and Energy (pg. 192). MIT Press (written: 1982).
9. (a) Winiarski, Leon. (1900). “Essay on Social Mechanics: The Social and Energy Measurements” (Essai sur la Mecanique Sociale: L’energie Sociale et ses Mensurations), Part II, Revue Philosophique, XLIX, 265, 287.
(b) Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas. (1971). The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (pg. 283). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
10. Mayer, Joseph. (1941). Social Science Principles in the Light of Scientific Method: with Particular Application to Modern Economic Thought (pg. 233). Duke University Press.
11. Winiarskiego, Leona. (1900). William Morris, 1844-1896. Warszawa.
12. Blit, Lucjan. (1971). The Origins of Polish Socialism: the History of Ideas of the First Polish Socialist Party, 1878-1886 (pgs. 128-29). Cambridge University Press.
13. Winiarski, Léone (1865-1915) – WorldCat Identities.
14. Winiarski, Leon. (1899). “L’équilibre Esthétique” (Aesthetic Equilibrium), Rev. Philos., xivii, pgs. 569-605.
15. Bernard, Luther Lee. (1911). The Transition to an Objective Standard of Social Control (Winiarski, pgs. 59-60). University of Chicago Press.
16. Ward, Lester F. (1918). Glimpses of the Cosmos (pg. vii), Volume 6. G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

Further reading
● Winiarski, Leon. (1894). "La Methode Mathematique dans la Sociologie et dans la Economic Politique," (Mathematical Methods in Sociology and Political Economics), La Revue Socialiste, XX, 716-730.
● Winiarski, L. (1896). “Deux Theories d’Equilibre Economique” ("Two Theories of Economic Equilibrium"), Revue Internationale de Sociologie, December.
● Giard, V. and Briere E. (1896). Two Theories of Economic Equilibrium, Leon Winiarski (Deux théories d'équilibre économique, par Léon Winiarski). (27-pgs). French.
● Winiarski, L. (1897). “Etude critique sur le troisieme volume du Capital de Karl Marx” ("Critical Study of the Third Volume of Capital by Karl Marx"), Revue d’Economie Politique.
● Winiarski, Leon. (1900). “L’Energie Sociale et Ses Mensurations” (“Social Energy and its Measurements”). Revue Philosophique Tome XLIX: 113-34; 256-84.
● Winiarski, Leon. (1967). Essais sur la Mecanique Sociale (Essays on Social Mechanics). Geneva: Droz.
● Mirowski, Philip. (1989). More Heat than Light – Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature’s Economics (Keywords: “Leon Winiarski”, pgs 267, 269-70, 382). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
● Steedman, Ian. (1995). Socialism and Marginalism in Economics (keyword: “Léon Winiarski”, pgs. 198-202, 263). Routledge.
Further reading

External links
● Leon Winiarski – Wikipedia.
● Leon Winiarski – Encyclopedia WIEM (Polish → English translate)