Our starting point will be the assumption that the state of our system (biological, physical, chemical, or otherwise) at a given time \( t \) is represented by a collection of \( D \) generic coordinates joined in a vector \( \mathbf{C}(t) = (C_1(t), C_2(t), C_i(t), \ldots C_D(t)) \). Note this vector depends on time implicitly . Next, we postulate the existence of a conserved property, named energy, as a function of the state variables \( E = E(\mathbf{C}(t)) \). Differentiating the energy yields \[ \frac{\diff E}{\diff t} = \sum_j \frac{\partial E}{\partial C_j} \frac{\diff C_j}{\diff t} , \] which provides an exact expression of the rate of change of the generic coordinate \( C_i \) \[ \frac{\diff C_i}{\diff t} = \left( \frac{\partial E}{\partial C_i} \right)^{-2} \frac{\diff E}{\diff t} \frac{\partial E}{\partial C_i} - \sum_{j\ne i} \frac{\diff C_j}{\diff t} \left( \frac{\partial E}{\partial C_i} \right)^{-1} \frac{\partial E}{\partial C_j} = \sum_j L_{ij} \frac{\partial E