Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature

18 Ideas for a Philosophy ofN au;..then it is presupposed as something that exists for itself and independently of its forces. So would these forces be merely accidental to itBecause matter is at hand outside you, so also it must owe its forces to aexternal cause. Are they, as it were, as some Newtonians say, implantedin it by a higher hand? But you have no conception of inftuences by which forces are implanted. You know only how matter, i.e.force itself, works against force; and how effects can be produced 0something which originally is not force, we have no conception at allOne may say something of the sort; it can pass from mouth to mouthbut never yet has it actually entered any human head, because nhuman head can think any such thing. Therefore, you cannot conceivematter at all without force.Further: Those forces are forces of attraction and repulsion. "Attractionand repulsion" -do these, then, take place in empty space?Do they not themselves already presuppose occupied space, that ismatter? So you must admit that neither forces without matter nomatter without forces can be conceived. But now matter is the finsubstratum of your knowledge, beyond which you cannot go; and ayou cannot explain those forces from the matter, so you cannot explaithem at all empirically, that is, by something outside yourself, as surelyyou must do according to your system.Irrespective of this it is asked in philosophy how matter is possibiexternal to us, thus also, how those forces are possible outside usOne can abjure all philosophizing (would to God those who do nounderstand it would be pleased to do so), but if you do wish t,philosophize, you cannot neglect those questions. Now, however, youcan in no way make intelligible what a force might be independent 0you. For force as such makes itself known only to your feeling. Yefeeling alone gives you no objective concepts. At the same time yomake objective use of those forces. For you explain the movement 0celestial bodies - universal gravitation - by forcesof attraction andmaintain that in this explanation you have an absolute principle 0these phenomena. In your system, however, the force of attracuoranks as nothing more or less than a physical cause. For as matterindependent of you exists outside you, so likewise you can only knowwhat forces belong to it through experience. As physical ground 0explanation, however, the force of attraction is nothing more andnothing less than an occult quality. All the same, let us first seewhether empirical principles can be adequate at all to explain thepossibility of a world system. The question answers itself in the negative;for the ultimate knowledge from experience is this, that a universeexists; this proposition is the limit of experience itself. Or rather,that a universe exists is itself only an idea. Even less, therefore, can theI Introduction 19rsal equilibrium of world forces be anything that you could haveted from experience. For you could not even extract this ideaxperience for the individual system if it is everywhere idea; butnsferred to the whole only by analogical inferences; such inferhowever,give no more than probability. Whereas ideas like thatniversal equilibrium, true in themselves, must for that reason bects of something, or must be grounded in something, which isbsolute and independent ofexperience.'!rdingly, you would have to admit that this idea itself reachesto a higher region than that of mere natural science. Newton,ever wholly abandoned himself to that, and himself still soughte effective cause ofattraction, saw only too well that he stood at theT ofNature and that here two worlds diverge. Seldom have greatlived at the same time without working from altogetherdifferenttowards the same objective. Whereas Leibniz based the system of'ritual world on the pre-established harmony, Newton found the1 of a matel'ial world in the equilibrium of world forces. But if,I, there is unity in the system of our knowledge, and if we everd in uniting the very last extremes of that system, we must hopeen here, where Leibniz and Newton diverged, an all-embracingwill at some time find the midpoint round which the universe ofour>'dge moves-the two worlds between which our knowledge is att still divided; and Leibniz's pre-established harmony and Newystemof gravitation still appear as one and the same, or merely asnt aspects ofone and the same totality. ,6farther. Raw matter, that is, matter insofar as it is thought of asfilling space, is only the firm ground and basis on which theof Nature is first constructed. Matter has to be something real.hat is real only permits of being sensed. How then is sensationle in me? As you say, it is not enough that I should be affectedwithout. There must be something in me which senses, and bethisand what you assume to be outside me no contact is possi­T, if this external thing works on me as matter on matter, then IIy react upon this externality (as it were, by repulsive force), but'on myself. And yet this has to occur, for I have to sense, have tohe sensation to consciousness.at you sense of matter you call quality, and only insofar as it has ainate quality is it said to be real for you. That it has quality at all'ssary, but that it has this determinate quality appears to you asdeas, like that ofa universal equilibrium, are only products ofa creative faculty ins, [First edition.]["and Leibniz's ... one and the same totality" is lacking in the first edition.]