Wilhelm Ostwald

“ This is due above all to the opinion of the most influential philosophers, that Aristotle's logic, or science of concepts, is absolutely true as well as exhaustive and complete, so that, at the utmost, what is left for later generations to do is only to make a change in the form in which the matter is presented. It is true that in more recent times the grave error of this view is beginning to be recognized. We realize that Aristotle's logic embraces but a very small part of the entire field, though in this part he displays the greatest genius. ”

“ Thus, the mere knowledge of past events is also called science without any thought of its use for prophesying future events. Yet a moment's reflection teaches that mere knowledge of the past which is not meant to, or cannot, serve as a basis for shaping the future is utterly aimless knowledge, and must take its place with other aimless activities called play. There are all sorts of plays requiring great acumen and patient application, as for example the game of chess; and no one has the right to prevent any individual from pursuing such games. ”

“ Science is not like a chain which snaps when only a single link proves to be weak. It is like a tree, or, better still, like a forest, in which all sorts of changes or ravages go on without causing the whole to pass out of existence or cease to be active. The relations between the various phenomena, once they become known, continue to exist as indestructible components of all future science. ”

“ Now, if we have two ideal engines between the same temperatures, and if we assume that engine A produces more work from the same quantity of heat than engine B, then let A move one way and let B move the other way with the work obtained from A. Since B produces less work from a given amount of heat, hence more heat from an equal amount of work, there will in the end be more heat at the higher temperature than was originally there. But experience teaches that there is no means in nature by which heat in the absence of concomitant change could be caused to rise to a higher temperature. ”

“ In this connection we learn what an enormous influence the various parts of experience exert upon one another in the development of science. In every special generalization of experiences, that is, in every individual scientific theory, our aim is not only to generalize this special group of experiences in themselves, but at the same time to join such other experiences to them as expedience demands. ”

“ The net of the relations of phenomena grows ever wider and more diversified, but its chief features persist.
The same is true of an individual. No matter how limited the circle of his knowledge, it is a part of the great net, and therefore possesses the quality by virtue of which the other parts readily join it as soon as they reach the consciousness and knowledge of the individual. The man who thus enters the realm of science acquires advantages which may be compared to those of a telephone in his residence. ”

“ It is a law rather which finds application in all the forms of energy. For in every form of energy there is a property which corresponds to temperature in heat, and upon the equality or the inequality of which depends whether the energy in question is at rest or ready for transformations. This property is called the intensity of the energy. In work, for instance, it is force, [154] in volume-energy it is pressure. If once the intensity in a body is equal, its energy is at rest, and it never again moves of its own accord. ”

“ By this the difficult concept of continuity is evoked in our experience. The transition from the light of day to the darkness of evening proceeds continuously, that is, at no point of the whole transition do we notice that the state just passed is different from the present one, while the difference over a wider extent of the experience is unmistakable. If we wish to bring vividly to our minds the contradiction to other habits of thought which this involves, we need only to represent to ourselves the following instance. ”

“ It is possible to foresee future needs in general outline with more or less certainty, but it is impossible to be prepared for particular individual cases which lie on the border line of such anticipation, and which may sometimes become of the utmost importance and urgency. Therefore it is one of the most important functions of science to achieve as perfect an elaboration as possible of all the relations conceivable, and in this practical necessity lies the foundation of the general or theoretical elaboration of science. ”

“ Their most general concept, accordingly, is that of life. By physiology is understood the entire science dealing with non-psychic life [57] phenomena. It therefore embraces what is called, in the present often chance arrangement of scientific activities, botany, zoology, and physiology of the plants, animals, and man. Psychology is the science of mental phenomena. As such, it is not limited to man, even though for many reasons he claims by far the preponderating part of it for himself. Sociology is the science which deals with the peculiarities of the human race. ”

“ Not only do murder and war destroy cultural values without substituting others in their place, not only do the countless conflicts which take place between the different nations and political organizations act anticulturally, but so do also the conflicts between the various social classes of one nation, for they destroy quantities of free energy which are thus withdrawn from the total of real cultural values. At present mankind is in a state of development in which progress depends much less upon the leadership of a few distinguished individuals than upon the collective labor of all workers. ”

“ Everything which serves the social progress of mankind is appropriately called civilization or culture, and the objective characteristic of progress consists in improved methods for seizing and utilizing the raw energies of nature for human purposes. Thus it was a cultural act when a primitive man discovered that he could extend the radius of his muscle energy by taking a pole in his hand, and it was another cultural act when a primitive man discovered that by throwing a stone he could send his muscle energy a distance of many meters to the desired point. ”

“ What distinguishes man most essentially from the other animals, even the most advanced, is his capacity for perfection, which in the lower animal can be paralleled at best by its capacity for self-preservation. While the organization of the animals within the short period of which we have any historical knowledge has to all appearances remained essentially unchanged, the world of mankind has changed in quite a remarkable way. This change consists in an increasing subjection of the external world to human purposes, and rests upon the increasing socialization of his capacities. ”

“ If every individual absorbed all parts of the experience, the individual, or subjective, differences would disappear. And since scientific experience endeavors to make the absorption of experiences as complete as possible, it aims nearer and nearer to this ideal by seeking to equalize the subjective deficiency of the individual memory through the collocation of as many and as various memories as possible, thus filling in the subjective gaps in experience as far as possible and rendering them harmless. ”

“ Thus, while work can be called a substance only in a limited sense, since its conservation is limited only to perfect machines, we may call energy a substance unqualifiedly, since in every instance of which we know the principle has been maintained that a quantity of any energy never disappears unless an equivalent quantity of another energy arises. ”

“ But if we reflect that in daily experience the space occupied by a rigid body, say a stick, seems to the eye to undergo radical changes as it shifts its position in space and that we can maintain that hypothesis only by declaring these changes to be "apparent," we recognize the arbitrariness which really resides in that assumption. We could represent all the relations just as well if we were to assume that those changes are real, and that they are successively undone when we restore the stick to its former relation to our eye. ”

“ For our only means of penetrating into the future consists in applying that conclusion from previous experiences to future experiences, and it can therefore by no means claim absolute validity. There are, however, different degrees of certainty, or, rather, probability, attaching to such a conclusion. In experiences that occur but rarely the probability is that so far we have experienced only certain combinations of simple concepts, while others, though occurring, have not yet entered within the limited circle of our experience. ”

“ The element of truth hidden in that misunderstood phrase is, that in a higher state of culture it is found better to disregard the immediate technical application in the pursuit of science, and to aim only for the greatest possible perfection and depth in the solution of its individual problems. Whether this is the correct method of procedure and when it is so, is solely a question of the general state of culture. In the early stages of human civilization such a demand is utterly meaningless, and all science is necessarily and naturally confined to immediate life. ”

“ A systematic investigation has not yet been made of the characters of manifoldness by which, for example, work is distinguished from heat, electrical energy from kinetic energy, etc., nor of what are the essential properties peculiar to each individual energy. We feel certain that differences do exist, for otherwise the energies could not be distinguished, and we feel certain that these differences are very important, for doubt seldom arises as to the kind of energy to which a certain phenomenon is to be assigned. ”

“ Students of the science of language make a sharp distinction between it and the knowledge of language, which is regarded as incomparably lower. But while a knowledge of language is important in at least one respect, in that it presents to us the cultural material set down in other languages, or makes them accessible in translation to those who do not know foreign languages, philology is of no service in this respect at all, and the pursuit of it will seem [99] as inconceivably futile to future science as the scholasticism of the middle ages seems to us now. ”

“ Natural science and natural philosophy are not two provinces mutually exclusive of each other. They belong together. They are like two roads leading to the same goal. This goal is the domination of nature by man, which the various natural sciences reach by collecting all the individual actual relations between the natural phenomena, placing them in juxtaposition, and seeking to discover their interdependence, upon the basis of which one phenomenon may be foretold from another with more or less certainty. ”

“ Accordingly, this law of the conservation of energy must be taken as a fundamental law of the physical sciences. But not only do all the phenomena of physics, including chemistry, occur within the limits of the law of conservation, but until the contrary is proved the law of conservation must also be regarded as operative in all the later sciences, that is, in all the activities of organisms, so that all the phenomena of life must also take place within the limits of the law of conservation. ”

“ Measurements have shown that in most favorable circumstances a plant leaf changes only about 1/50 of the radiant energy it receives into chemical energy. If we consider that only a small part of the surface of the earth is covered with plants and that during the winter no energy from the sun is stored up at all, we perceive what infinite possibilities for development there still are in arresting and storing up free energy. The part stored up by the plants flows from these into the countless streams, brooks, and veins of the other organisms, to end finally as used-up energy, or energy at rest. ”

“ It is clear that men will very soon notice and avail themselves of so enormous an advantage for the mastery and shaping of life. Thus, we see the process of co-ordination in general use among the most primitive men. Even the higher animals know how to utilize co-ordination consciously. When the dog learns to answer to his name, when the horse responds to the "Whoa" and the "Gee" of his driver there is in each case a co-ordination of a definite action or series of actions, that is, of a concept with a sign, or, in other words, of a concept with a member of another group ”