Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature

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20 Ideas Fir a Philosophy ofHallIntroduction2 Icontingent. If so, then matter as such cannot have one and the samequality: There must, therefore, be a multiplicity of determinations witlall of which you are nevertheless acquainted through mere sensationWhat then is it that causes sensation? "Something internal, an inneconstitution of matter." These are words, not facts. For where then ithe inside of this matter? You can divide endlessly and yet come nofarther than to the surfaces of bodies. All this has long been obvious toyou; so you have long since explained what is merely sensed as somethingwhich has its basis only in the manner of your sensing. But this isthe very least. For it does not make sensation any more intelligible thanothing which exists outside of you should be in itself sweet or sour; inany case, you always assume a cause actually outside you, which producesthese sensations in you. But suppose we allow you the innereffects of outer causation, what then have colours, scents, and the like,or the causes external to you of these sensations, in common with yourmind? You investigate very meticulously how light reflected frombodies affects your optical nerves, also indeed how the inverted imagon the retina is not inverted in your soul, but appears upright. Butthen again what is that in you which sees this image on the retina itself,and investigates how indeed it can have come into the soul? Obviouslit is something which to this extent is completely independent of theexternal impression, and to which nevertheless this impression is notunknown. How then did the impression reach this region of your soulin which you feel wholly free and independent of impressions? Howevermany intervening factors you insert between the effects on yournerves, brain, etc., and the idea of an external thing, you only deceiveyourself; for the transition from the body to the soul, according toyour own submissions, cannot occur continuously, but only by a leap,which you profess you would rather avoid. .Moreover, that one mass works upon another by virtue of its meremotion (by impenetrability) is what you call impact or mechanicalmovement.Or else, one material thing works on another without the conditionof a previously received motion, so that movement proceeds fromrest'? through attraction, and this is your gravity.You conceive of matter as inert, that is, as something which does notmove self-actively, but can only be moved by external causes.Again, the gravity which you ascribe to bodies, you set equal to thequantity of matter (irrespective of its volume) as specific weight.:"'7 ["without the condition ... proceeds from rest" is lacking in the first edition.],8 Again, specific gravity belongs to bodies, that is, the quantity of attraction is equalto the quantity of matter (irrespective of their volume). [First edition.]"ow you find, however, that one body can impart motion to anwithoutbeing moved itself, that is, without acting upon it byrt.u observe, further, that two bodies can mutually attract one analtogetherindependent of the relation of their masses, that is to'pendent of the laws ofgravity.therefore assume that the ground of this attraction can bet neither in the weight nor on the surface of the body so moved;round must be something internal and must depend on the:y of the body. Only you have never yet explained what yourstand by the inner nature of a body. Moreover, it has been dernatedthat quality has legitimate sense only in relation to yourtion. But here we are speaking, not of your sensation, but of antive fact, which occurs outside you, which you apprehend withsenses, and which your understanding seeks to translate intoigible concepts. Now, assume that we admit quality to be somewhichhas a ground, not merely in your sensation, but in theoutside you; what then do the words mean: One body attracts.er by virtue of its qualities? For what is real in this attraction, thatat enables you to perceive it, is merely-the motion of the body.n, however, is a pure mathematical magnitude, and can be depurelyphoronomically. How then does this external movementine with an inner quality? You are borrowing pictorial expreswhichare taken from living natures, for example, family relaip,But you would be very hard put to convert this image into anigible concept. Further, you heap elementary stuff on elementuff,but these are nothing else thanjust so many refuges of yournee. For what do you think of under these terms? Not matter, e.g., carbon, but something that is contained in this matter, as ifn, and first imparts these qualities to it. But where then is thistary stuff in the body? Has anyone ever found it by division ortion? As yet there is not one of these stuffs which you couldnt to the senses. But even if we presume their existence, what doin? Is the quality of matter somehow explained thereby? I conthus:Either the quality which they impart to the body belongs tolementary stuffs themselves, or it does not. In the first case, youexplained nothing, for the question was just that, how do qualirise?In the other case, again nothing is explained, for I underhowone body could (mechanically) strike the other and so irnotionto it; but how a body completely devoid of qualities couldt quality to another, this nobody understands, and nobody canit intelligible. For quality as such is something of which so far
22Ideas [or a Philosophy of Nat,Introduction 23you have been in no position to give any objective conception, and yetof which you make objective use (in chemistry, at least).These are the elements of our empirical knowledge. For if we mayonce presuppose matter and with it forces ofattraction and repulsion,besides an endless multiplicity of kinds of matter, which are all distinguishedfrom another by qualities, we have, according to the guidanceof the table of categories:I. Quantitative motion, which is proportional only to the quantityof matter- gravity;2. Qualitative motion, which is appropriate to the inner constitutionof matter-chemical motion;3. Relative motion, which is transmitted to bodies by influencefrom without (by impact)-mechanical motion.It is these three possible motions from which natural science engendersand develops its entire system.The part of physics which is concerned with the jirs! is called statics.That which is concerned with the third is called mechanics. This is themain part of physics; for basically the whole of physics is nothing butapplied rnechanics.» That part, which is concerned with the secondkind of motion, serves in physics only as ancillary, namely chemistry,whose object is essentially to trace the specific difference of matter; itis the science which first creates for mechanics (in itself a wholly formalscience) content and diverse application. It requires, that is to say,very little trouble to derive from the principles of chemistry the mainobjects which physics (with respect to its mechanical and dynamicalmotionsls- investigates; for example, for chemical attraction betweenbodies to take place, one may say, there must be a matter whichextends them, which works against inertia-light and heat-also substanceswhich mutually attract one another and, so that there may bethe greatest simplicity, one fundamental substance, which all othersattract. And, as Nature itself requires many chemical processes for itscontinuance, these conditions of chemical processes, and so vital air,as the product of light and that fundamental stuff, must be presenteverywhere. And as this air would promote the violence of combustionall too readily and exhaust the strength of our organs excessively,'9 In mechanics the universal properties of bodies, like elasticity. solidity, density,etc., insofar as they have influence on mechanical movement, can likewise be included.However, universal kinematics does not at all belong among the empiricalsciences-I believe that, according to this division, physics acquires a far simplerand more natural coherence than it has hitherto received in most textbooks.'0 ["and dynamical" is added in the second edition.]ixture of it with another kind of air directly opposed to it ised-atmospheric air, and so forth.'his is more or less the way in which the theory of Nature attainspleteness. But our present concern is not how we might presenth a system, once it exists, but how in general such a system couldt. The question is not whether and how that assemblage of pheelpand the series of causes and effects, which we call the courseature, has become actual outside us, but how they have becomeal for us, how that system and that assemblage of phenomena haved their way to our minds, and how they have attained the necesinour conception with which we are absolutely compelled to thinkem. For it is presupposed, as undeniable fact, that the representaofa succession of causes and effects external to us is as necessaryour mind as if they belonged to its very being and essence. Toain this necessity is a major problem of all philosophy. The quesisnot whether this problem as such ought to exist, but how, onceists, it must be solved.rst of all, what does it mean to say: We must think of a successionhenomena, which is absolutely neCeSSU1)? Obviously this: Theseomena could follow one another only in this particular succession,vice versa, only in these particular phenomena can this successioneed.I' that our ideas follow one another in this precise order, that formple the lightning precedes the thunder, does not follow it, and sofor this we do not seek the reason in us; it does not matter to us howt the ideas follow one another; the reason must, therefore, lie in the:5, and we declare that this particular succession is a succession ofings themselves, not merely ofour ideas ofthem. Only insofar as theomena themselves follow one another thus and not otherwise arempelled to represent them in this order; only because and insofaris succession is objectively necessary is it also subjectively necessary.ow from this it follows further that this particular succession canbedivorced from these particular phenomena; the successiont thus come to be and arise together with the phenomena, andersely the phenomena must come about and arise together withsuccession; therefore, both succession and phenomenon are inual relation, both are mutually necessary in regard to each other.ne has only to analyse the commonest judgments that we pass at"y moment about the connection of phenomena, in order to disI' that the above presuppositions are contained in them.ow, if neither the phenomena can be separated from their succesnnor the succession from its phenomena, only the two followings are possible:
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Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature

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