Dr. Simkin's example 2, the linear oscillator, was demonstrated in Ref. 2 without the necessity of Lagrange multipliers and equations of constraint. direct analytical solution to a nonlinear oscillator is presented in Ref. 15. Example 3, of course, may be formulated and the direct analytical solution obtained through Hamilton's law without use of Dirac functions and without use of Lagrange multipliers. It is significant that all three of Dr. Simkins' examples treat conservative systems. Direct analytical solutions to both conservative and nonconservative systems, both discrete'and for continuua''' have now been demonstrated through application of Hamilton's law. With this law, it makes little difference whether the system is conservative or nonconservative (both conservativeness and stationarity were assumed by Lagrange in order to produce his rigorous proof of the principle of least action). I must again express my appreciation to Dr. Simkins for his reference to my papers. However, in my opinion, his generation of unconstrained variational statements fails on at least two counts, simplicity and generality. Bailey, C. D., Application of the General Energy Equation: A Unified Approach to Mechanics, Final Report, NASA Grant NCR 36-008-197, Aug. 1975. Hamilton, W. R., Second Essay on a General Method in Dynamics, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Vol. 125, 1835, pp. 95-144. Bailey, C. D. and Haines, J. L., The Hamilton-Ritz Formulation Applied to the Vibration and Stability of Non-Conservative Follower Force Systems, submitted to Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, Sept. 1978.