E. THE SCIENCE OF NATURE
XV
Inorganic Nature
(See Exposition on Brief, Chapter 15)
T
HE SIMPLEST
form of action in Nature seems to us
to be that in which an occurrence results wholly from factors
external to one another. Here is an occurrence, or a relationship
between two objects, not necessitated by an entity which
manifests itself in the external forms of appearance — an
individuality which exhibits its capacities and character in an
effect produced outwardly. The occurrence or relationship has been
called forth merely by the fact that one thing which has occurred
has, in its occurrence, produced a certain effect upon another thing,
has transferred its own state to some other thing. The states of one
thing appear as results of those of another. The system of actions
which happen in this fashion, so that one fact is always the result
of others of similar sort, is called inorganic
Nature.
Here the course of
an occurrence or the characteristic of a relationship depends upon
external determinants; the facts bear marks in themselves which are
the results of these determinants. If the form is altered in which
these external factors meet, the result of their combined existence
is also naturally altered; the phenomenon thus brought about is
altered.
What is, now, the manner of this
combined existence in the case of inorganic Nature as it enters
directly into our field of observation? It bears altogether the
character which we designated above as that of immediate
experience. We have here merely a special case of that experience in
general. We have to deal here with connections between facts of the
senses. But it is just these connections which seem to us in the
experience not to be clear or transparent. The fact a confronts us,
but at the same moment also numerous others. When we cast our glance
over the multiplicity here presented to us, we are in complete
uncertainty as to which of these other facts stand in closer and
which in more remote relationships to the fact a, now under
discussion. There may be some present of such sort that the
event could not occur without them, and others which merely modify it
but without which it could nevertheless occur, except that it would
have, under the different circumstances, another
form.
In this way we see
at once the path which cognition must take in this field. If the
combination of facts in immediate experience does not suffice us,
then we must go forward to another combination satisfying to
our need for explanation. We have to create such conditions that an
occurrence will appear to us in transparent clarity as the
inevitable result of these conditions.
We recall why it
is that thought contains its own essential nature in immediate
experience. It is because we stand within and not without that
process which creates thought combinations out of the single thought
elements. Here, therefore, we are given, not only the finished
process, the product, but that which produces. And the
important point is that, when we confront any occurrence in the
external world, we shall above all perceive the impelling forces
which bring this forth from the center of the world-totality to its
periphery. The opacity or obscurity of any phenomenon or relationship
in the sense-world can be overcome only when we perceive adequately
that it is the result of a certain association of facts. We must know
that the occurrence we now see arises through the interaction of this
and that element of the sense-world. Then the manner of this
interaction must be completely penetrable by our intellect. The
relation into which the facts are brought must be an ideal relation,
one suited to our minds. Of course, in the relationships into which
things are brought by our intellect, they comport themselves
according to their own natures.
We see at once what is hereby gained.
If I look haphazard into the sense-world, I see occurrences brought
about by the interaction of so many factors that it is
impossible for me to see directly what really stands behind
this effect as the causative element. I observe an occurrence
and at the same time the facts a, b, c, d. How shall I know at once
which of these facts participate to greater and which to lesser
extent in the occurrence? The thing becomes transparent when I first
inquire which of the four facts is absolutely necessary if the
process is to occur at all. I find for example that a
and c
are absolutely necessary. Then I find that
without d
the process occurs, indeed, but with important
modification; and, on the contrary, that b
has no essential
significance but could be replaced by
some other factor. In the above diagram let I represent symbolically the
grouping of the elements for mere
sense-perception; II,
that for the mind. Thus the mind so groups the facts
of the inorganic world that it perceives in an occurrence or a
condition the result of the relationship of the facts. Thus the mind
introduces necessity into the midst of
chance.
We will make this clear by an
example. When I have before me a triangle ABC,
I do not see at first glance that the sum of the three
angles is always equal to two right angles. This becomes clear
when I group the facts in the following
manner.
From the figures by the side of the
triangle it becomes clear at once that the angle a'
equals the angle a;
the angle b'
equals the angle b.
(AB and CD
are parallel to A'B'
and C'D'
respectively.) If, now, I draw through the
apex C
of a triangle a line parallel to the
base AB,I find,
when I apply the above example, that the angle a'
equals the angle a; b'
equals b.
Since, now, c
equals itself, then of necessity the three
angles of the triangle equal together two right angles. Here I
have explained a complicated combination of facts by reducing it to
such simple facts that, by reason of the condition presented to the
mind, the corresponding relationship is necessarily inferred
from the nature of the things given.
Another example is the following. I
throw a stone in a
horizontal direction. It describes a
path which we have represented in the line ll'. When I consider the impelling
forces which are here to be taken into account, I find: 1. the
propelling force which I exerted; 2. the force with which the earth
attracts the stone; 3. the force of the atmospheric
resistance.
Upon closer examination, I find that
the first two forces are essential and determine the character of the
path, while the third is subsidiary. If only the first two were
present, the stone would describe the path LL'.
This latter I find when I ignore the third force and
bring into combination only the former two. To carry this out in
actual fact is neither possible nor necessary. I cannot eliminate all
resistance. But for my purpose I need only apprehend in thought
the nature of the first two forces, and then bring them into the
necessary relationship likewise in thought, and I deduce the
path LL'
as that which must necessarily result when only these
two forces interact.
In this way the
mind resolves all phenomena of the inorganic world into those in
which the effect seems to the mind to come directly and of necessity
from the causative factor.
If, then, after arriving at the law
of the motion of the stone under the influence of the two forces, one
introduces the third force, the result is path ll'. Additional conditions might
complicate the matter still further. Every composite occurrence
in the sense-world appears as a web of such simple facts, which can
be penetrated by the mind; and it is reducible to
these.
Now, a phenomenon
in which the character of the occurrence can be seen in transparently
clear fashion to result directly from the nature of the factors under
consideration is called a primal phenomenon, or fundamental
fact.
This primal phenomenon is identical
with objective natural law. For in it there is expressed the fact,
not only that an occurrence happened under certain definite
conditions, but that it had to happen. It has been seen clearly that
the occurrence had to happen because of the very nature of the thing
under consideration. The reason why empiricism is to-day so
generally demanded is that it is supposed that any assumption which
goes beyond what is empirically given leaves us groping in the
uncertain. We see that we may remain wholly within the phenomena and
yet meet with the inevitable. The inductive method, to-day so much
espoused, can never do this. In reality it proceeds in the
following manner. It observes a phenomenon which comes about in
a definite manner under given conditions. Again it sees the same
phenomenon occur under similar conditions. From this it concludes
that there exists a general law according to which this occurrence
must take place, and postulates this law as such. Such a method
remains entirely external to the phenomena. It does not penetrate
into the depths. Its laws are generalizations from individual facts.
It must always await the establishment of the rule by the individual
facts. Our method knows that its laws are simply facts which are torn
out of the confusion of chance and made into matters of necessity. We
know that, when the factors a
and b
are present, a definite effect must appear. We do not
go beyond the world of phenomena. The content of knowledge, as
we view it, is nothing more than objective occurrence. The only
change is in the form of the combination of facts. But this change
advances one step deeper into objectivity than experience
enables one to penetrate. We so combine the facts that they act
according to their own natures and only thus, and that this effect
cannot be modified by this or that
circumstance.
We attach the
greatest importance to the fact that these discussions can be
confirmed wherever one may look into the real functioning of science.
They are contradicted only by the fallacious opinions that are
held in regard to the scope and nature of scientific principles.
While many of our contemporaries contradict their own theories
when they enter the field of practical research, the harmony between
our explanation and all true research can easily be shown in every
single instance.
Our theory demands
for every natural law a definite form. It presupposes a combination
of facts and maintains that, when this appears anywhere in reality, a
definite occurrence must take place.
Every natural law,
therefore, has this form: When this fact interacts with that,
this phenomenon arises. It would be easy to show that all natural
laws really have this form: When two bodies of unequal temperature
are in contact, heat passes from the warmer to the less warm until
the temperature of the two is the same. If a fluid is contained in
two vessels which are connected, the level becomes identical in the
two vessels. If a body stands between a source of light and another
body, it casts a shadow upon the latter. In mathematics, physics, and
mechanics, anything which is not mere description must be a
primal phenomenon.
All advance in
knowledge rests upon the perception of primal phenomena. When we are
able to remove an occurrence from its connection with other
occurrences and explain it as the effect of definite elements of
experience, then we have penetrated a step deeper into the fabric of
the world.
We have seen that
the primal phenomenon yields itself wholly to thinking when the
factors concerned are brought together in thought according to their
nature. But one can also create artificially the necessary
conditions. This happens in scientific research. There we have
in our own control the occurrence of definite factors. Naturally we
cannot ignore all related circumstances. Yet there is a way by
which we may surmount the latter. We may produce a phenomenon
under various modifications. We allow first one and then another
contributing circumstance to be active. We then find that one
constant persists through all these modifications. We must retain the
essential thing in all the combinations. We find that in all these
individual experiences a factual component of these is constant. This
is higher experience within experience. It is the fundamental
fact, or primal phenomenon.
The experiment is
intended to convince us that nothing else influences a definite
occurrence except what we take into account. We bring together
certain conditions whose nature is known to us and observe what
follows from these. Here we have an objective phenomenon on the basis
of subjective creation. We have something objective which is at the
same time thoroughly subjective. The experiment is, therefore, the
true mediator between subject and object in inorganic
science.
The germ of the view we have here
developed is to be found in the correspondence between Goethe and
Schiller. Goethe's letters 410 and 413 and Schiller's 412 and 414 are
concerned with this. They designate this method as rational
empiricism, because it takes as content for knowledge nothing except
objective occurrences, but these objective occurrences are held
together by a web of concepts (laws) which our minds discover in
them. Sensible occurrences in an interconnection which only thought
can grasp — this is rational empiricism. If these letters are
compared with Goethe's essay Der Versuch als
Vermittler von Subjekt and Object,
[The Experiment as Mediator between
Subject and Object.]
the theory given above will be found to be the logical conclusion to be
drawn from them.
Thus the general
relation we have defined between experience and knowledge is
valid everywhere in inorganic Nature. Ordinary experience is only one
half of reality. To the senses this half alone exists. The other half
is present only to the conceptual capacities of our minds. The
mind raises experience from an “appearance for the
senses” to something belonging to itself. We have shown how it
is possible in this realm to raise oneself from the product to
the producing. It is the mind that finds this latter when it
confronts the former.
Scientific satisfaction will come to
us from a point of view only when it leads us into a totality
complete in itself. But the sense-world as inorganic does not appear
at any point as brought to a conclusion; nowhere does an individual
whole appear. Every occurrence points to another upon which it
depends; this to a third; etc. Where is there any conclusion in this?
The sense-world as inorganic does not arrive at individuality. Only
in its totality is it complete in itself. We must strive, therefore,
if we would have a whole, to conceive the assemblage of the inorganic
as a system. Such a system is the cosmos.
A thorough
understanding of the cosmos is the goal and ideal of inorganic
natural science. Every scientific endeavor which does not attain to
this is merely preparatory: a member of the whole, but not the whole
itself.
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