Part 2 (1/2)
(Lavoisier). Sceptical philosophers could, however, raise certain objections to either of these fundamental laws with as much success as against their combination into the single superior law of the ”conservation of substance.” As a matter of fact, dualistic philosophy still attempts to raise such objections, often under the guise of cautious criticism. The sceptical (in part also purely dogmatic) objections have a semblance of justification only in so far as they relate to the fundamental problem of substance, the primary question as to the connection between matter and energy. While freely recognising the presence of this real ”boundary of natural knowledge,” we can yet, within this boundary, apply quite universally the ”mechanical law of causality.”
The complicated ”phenomena of mind,” as they are called (more especially consciousness), fall under the ”law of the conservation of substance”
just as strictly as do the simpler mechanical processes of nature dealt with in inorganic physics and chemistry. Compare note 16.]
[Footnote 8: _Kant and Monism_.
As recent German philosophy has in a large measure returned to Kant, and in some cases even deified as ”infallible” the great Konigsberg philosopher, it may be well here to point out once more that his system of critical philosophy is a mixture of monistic and dualistic ingredients. His critical principles of the theory of knowledge will always remain of fundamental importance: his proof that we are unable to know the essential and profoundest essence of substance, the ”thing in itself” (or ”the combination of matter and energy”); that our knowledge remains subjective in its nature; that it is conditioned by the organisation of our brain and sensory organs, and can therefore only deal with the phenomena which our experience of the outer world affords us.
But within these ”limits of human knowledge” a positive monistic knowledge of nature is still possible, in contrast to all dualistic and metaphysical fantasies. One such great fact of monistic knowledge was the mechanical cosmogony of Kant and Laplace, the ”Essay on the Const.i.tution and Mechanical Origin of the Universe, according to the Principles of Newton” (1755). In the whole field of our knowledge of inorganic nature, Kant held firmly to the monistic point of view, allowing mechanism alone as the real explanation of the phenomena. In the science of organic nature also, on the other hand, he held monism to be valid indeed, yet insufficient; here he considered it necessary to call in the aid of final as well as of efficient causes. (_Cf_. the fifth lecture of my _Natural History of Creation_ on ”The Evolution-Theory of Kant and Lamarck”; also Albrecht Rau's _Kant und die Naturforschung: Eine Prufung der Resultate des idealistischen Kritikismus durch den realistischen Kosmos_, vol. ii., 1886.) Once thus on the downgrade of dualistic teleology, Kant afterwards arrived at his untenable metaphysical views of ”G.o.d, Freedom, and Immortality.” It is probable that Kant would have escaped these errors if he had had a thorough anatomical and physiological training. The natural sciences were, indeed, at that time truly in their infancy. I am firmly convinced that Kant's system of critical philosophy would have turned out quite otherwise from what it was, and purely monistic, if he had had at his disposal the then unsuspected treasures of empirical natural knowledge which we now possess.]
[Footnote 9: _The Ether_.
In a thoughtful lecture on the relations between light and electricity at the sixty-second Congress of German naturalists and physicians in Heidelberg in 1889, Heinrich Hertz explains the scope of his brilliant discovery: ”Thus the domain of electricity extends over the whole of nature. It comes nearer to ourselves; we learn that we actually possess an electric organ, the eye. Here we are brought face to face with the question as to unmediated _actio in distans_. Is there such a thing? Not far off from this, in another direction, lies the question of the nature of electricity. And immediately connected therewith arises the momentous and primary question as to the nature of the ether, of the properties of the medium that fills all s.p.a.ce, its structure, its rest or motion, its infinitude or finitude. It becomes every day more manifest that this question rises above all others, that a knowledge of what the ether is would reveal to us not only the nature of the old 'imponderables,' but also of the old 'matter' itself and its most essential properties, weight and inertia. Modern physics is not far from the question whether everything that exists is not created from the ether.” This question is already being answered in the affirmative by some monistic physicists, as, for example, by J. G. Vogt in his most suggestive work on _The Nature of Electricity and Magnetism_, on _The Basis of the Conception of a Single Substance_ (Leipsic, 1891). He regards the atoms of ma.s.s (the primal atoms of the kinetic theory of matter) as individualised centres of concentration of the continuous substance that uninterruptedly fills all s.p.a.ce; the mobile elastic part of this substance between the atoms, and universally distributed, is--the ether. Georg Helm in Dresden, on the basis of mathematico-physical experiments, had already at an earlier date arrived at the same conclusions; in his treatise on ”Influences at a Distance mediated by the Ether” (_Annalen der Physik und Chemie_, 1881, Bd. xiv.), he shows that it requires only the postulate of one particular kind of matter, the ether, to explain influence at a distance and radiation; that is, as regards these phenomena, all the qualities ascribable to matter, except that of motion, are of no account; in other words, that in thinking of the ether we simply require to think of it as ”the mobile.”]
[Footnote 10: _Atoms and Elements_.
The evidences, numerous and important, for the composite nature of our empirical elements, have lately been compendiously discussed by Gustav Wendt in his treatise, _Die Entwicklung der Elemente: Entwurf zu einer biologischen Grundlage fur Chemie und Physik_[I] (Berlin, 1891); compare also Wilhelm Freyer's _Die organischen Elemente und ihre Stellung im System_[II] (Wiesbaden, 1891), Victor Meyer's _Chemische Probleme der Gegenwart_[III] (Heidelberg, 1890), and W. Crookes's _Genesis of the Elements_. For the different views as to the nature of the atom, see Philip Spiller on ”The Doctrines of Atoms” in _Die Urkraft des Weltalls nach ihrem Wesen und Wirken auf allen Naturgebieten[IV]_ (Berlin, 1886), (1. The philosophy of nature; 2. The doctrine of the ether; 3. The ethical side of the science of nature). For the const.i.tution of the elements out of atoms, see A. Turner, Die Kraft und Ma.s.se im Raume[V]
(Leipsic, 3rd ed., 1886), (1. On the nature of matter and its relations.h.i.+ps; 2. Atomic combinations; 3. The nature of the molecules and their combinations. Theory of crystallisation).
Note I ”The Development of the Elements: an Essay towards a Biological Basis for Chemistry and Physics.”
Note II ”The Organic Elements and their Place in the System.”
Note III ”Chemical Problems of the Day.”
Note IV ”The Primary Force of the Universe, its Nature and Action.”
Note V ”Force and Matter in s.p.a.ce.”]
[Footnote 11: _World-Substance_.
The relation of the two fundamental const.i.tuents of the cosmos, ether and ma.s.s, may perhaps be made apparent, in accordance with one out of many hypotheses, by the following, partly provisional, scheme.]
World (=Substance=Cosmos).]
(Nature as knowable by Man.)]
Ether (=”spirit”) (mobile Ma.s.s (=”body”) (inert or or active substance). pa.s.sive substance).
Property of Vibration. Property of Inertia.]
Chief Functions: Electricity, Chief Functions: Gravity, Magnetism, Light, Heat. Inertia, Chemical Affinity.
Structure: dynamical; Structure: atomic, discontinuous, continuous, elastic substance, inelastic substance, not composed of atoms (?) composed of atoms (?)]
Theosophical: ”G.o.d the Theosophical: ”Created Creator” (always in motion). world” (pa.s.sively formed).]
”Influence of s.p.a.ce.” ”Products of s.p.a.ce condensation.”]
[Footnote 12: _General doctrine of Evolution_.
The fundamental importance of the modern doctrine of evolution, and of the monistic philosophy based upon it, is clearly evidenced by the steady increase of its copious literature. I have cited the most important treatises on this subject in the new (eighth) edition of my _Natural History of Creation_ (1889). Compare, specially, Carus Sterne (Ernst Krause), _Werden und Vergehen: Eine Entwicklungsgeschichte des Naturganzen in gemeinverstandlicher Fa.s.sung_[VI] (3rd ed., Berlin, 1886); Hugo Spitzer, _Beitrage zur Descendenztheorie und zur Methodologie der Naturwissenschaft_ (Graz, 1886);[VII] Albrecht Ran, _Ludwig Feuerbach's Philosophie der Naturforschung und die philosophische Kritik der Gegenwart_ (Leipsic, 1882);[VIII] Hermann Wolff, _Kosmos: Die Weltentwicklung nach monitisch-psychologischen Principien auf Grundlage der exacten Naturforschung_ (Leipsic, 1890).[IX]
Note VI ”Growth and Decay: a Popular History of the Development of the Cosmos.”