Since the striving or the force of the atom is the primitive element constituting matter, and as such in itself simple and immaterial, there can here then be no more talk of material predispositions; the above requirements must be combined in an immaterial way. This is only possible if the striving possesses all the uniformly variable definiteness of its mode of manifestation as an appearance resembling reality—as image, as it were; i.e., however, if it possesses the same ideally or as presentation. Only if in the striving of the atomic force the “what” of the endeavour be ideally prefigured, only then is a determination of the endeavour at all given; only then is a result of the endeavour, only then that consequence possible which in the same force-individual always retains the same positive or negative goal of endeavour, but still acts on a second atom from this particular distance with this particular strength, on a third from that distance in that strength. Without itself changing, the atomic force changes the extent of its action according to circumstances, and that too with logical uniformity (mechanics = applied mathematics, mathematics = applied logic). This necessitation by circumstances leaves its activity, its spontaneity untouched, and requires therefore, nevertheless, the direct procession of action from inner determination; thus requires ideality as prius of reality, and causes the necessitation to be perceived as a logical necessitation (from the logical determinateness of the Idea).
But now, what then is the striving of force other than will, that endeavour whose content or object forms the unconscious idea of what is aimed at? Let one only compare A. Chap. iv. Vol. I. pp. 117–112; what we have here derived from force we have there derived from will. That the will is in its nature and immediately regarded eternally unconscious we have shown, C. Chap. iii. pp. 96–104; that it here also must be mediately unconscious, since its content is an unconscious idea, is matter of course. Not violently have we so far extended the notion of the will as to include in it that of force; but in that we proceeded from the will of the cerebral consciousness, acknowledged as such, has this notion of itself broken through the limits drawn for it by consciousness in an authorised manner (vol. i. pp. 69–71), and evinced itself gradually as the efficient principle in all activities of the animal and vegetable kingdom. Now we see, to our astonishment, that if we would think anything under the notion of a (no longer derived, but independent) force, it can only be what we have thought in the case of will; that thus both conceptions would be identical if force were not by conventional limitation of its content narrower, and, moreover, were used quite especially for derived forces, i.e., for particular combinations and manifestations of atomic forces, e.g., elasticity, magnetism, muscular force, &c. To replace the notion Will by the notion Force, or at all to subsume it under the latter, would therefore be bad, because force is properly derivative, only in the special scientific sense original; will, on the other hand, always original; and because force, in the ordinary acceptation, and in the view of common sense, is a much more incomprehensible conception than will; one is also accustomed by the crude sensuous mode of apprehension to think something especially material by “force,” since the notion is only carried over from the feeling of muscular energy to other external objects. So much more inward as is the will than the feeling of muscular energy, so much more significant is the word Will to express the essential truth than the word Force. (Comp. Schopenhauer, “Welt als Wille und Vorstellung § 22, and Wallace, ‘Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection.’” Wallace declares himself just as decidedly against the retention of matter along with force as for the volitional nature of all force, and herewith of the whole universe.)
The manifestations of the atomic forces are thus individual acts of will, whose content consists in the unconscious representation of what is to be performed. Thus matter is in fact resolved into Will and Idea. Herewith is the radical distinction between spirit and matter abolished; their difference consists only in higher or lower forms of manifestation of the same essence, the eternally Unconscious, but their identity is perceived in this, that the Unconscious manifests itself equally in mind and matter as the intuitively—logical Ideal, and dynamically realises the conceived ideal anticipation of the actual. The identity of mind and matter herewith ceases to be an uncomprehended and unproved postulate, or a product of mystical conception, by being elevated to scientific cognition, and that, too, not by killing the spirit, but by vivifying matter. There were only two standpoints hitherto which actually avoided this dualism, but both could only do this by boldly denying the truth of one side. Materialism denied spirit; Idealism, matter. The former regarded mind as unsubstantial appearance, resulting from certain constellations of material functions; the latter regarded matter as unsubstantial appearance, resulting from the peculiarity of subjective conscious psychical function. The one is as one-sided and untrue as the other, and the unconquered strict dualism of co-ordinate spirit and matter to be preferred to both. Not merely to evade this dualism by the denial of one aspect, but really to overcome and absorb it, is only in the power of a philosophy which sees in the subjective conscious mind, as in matter, only phenomena of one and the same principle in the subjective or objective sphere respectively—a principle which is higher than both, and at the same time less differentiated than either; in a word, a philosophy of the Unconscious (whether Hegel’s Unconscious Idea, or Schopenhauer’s Unconscious Will, or the substantial unity of both in Schelling’s Eternally Unconscious).
Let us now consider how the atomic will is related to space. Without in any way needing to enter upon the question concerning the essence of space, we may say this much: Space may have a twofold existence, one real in bodies or bounded voids, and one ideal in the mental representation of bodies and bounded voids. If the ideal space is in the representation, the representing cannot be in the ideal space which it first creates; if cerebral vibrations constrain the Unconscious to a reaction with conscious perception, this perception has nothing to do with the place of the vibrating spot in the brain, or the place of this perceiving man upon the earth; the idea is thus also not in the real space. Will is the translation of the ideal into the real; it adds to the ideal its content, that which bare thinking cannot give it, by realising it. Whilst this its content, which is always an idea, also contains ideal-spatial determinations, the will at the same time also realises these spatial determinations, and this also puts space out of the ideal into the real, posits thus the real space. (How space arises in the ideal does not here concern us; enough that it is the will that posits real space.) That which is only created by the will cannot be present before completed willing; the will as such cannot then be real-spatial. With ideal space, however, the will has nothing at all to do. For it exists merely in the idea, i.e., in the mental representation. In short, Will and Idea are both of non-spatial nature, since it is the idea which first creates the ideal space, the will by realisation of the idea the real space. It follows from this that also the atomic will or the atomic force can be nothing spatial, because it, as Schelling says, is extensione prior.
To common apprehension this may for the moment appear strange, but the strangeness immediately disappears if we compare it with the spatial effects of the will in organisms. The will moves in me certain nervous molecules in such a manner that by transmission of the current and employment of the polar forces in nerves and muscles my arm lifts a hundredweight. The will has thus directly produced certain spatial changes of position, which we, it is true, do not more exactly know, but of which we can say this much, that their movements of direction by no means meet in a common point of section, but probably consist of revolutions of a certain number of molecules about their axes. Movement ensues just in this manner because the unconscious idea, which forms the content of the will, ideally contains just this kind of movement. Did this representation, on the other hand, ideally contain such movements or intersect in a common point, the will would also realise such movements, and this it does in the atomic will. One sees, then, that this common point of section of all manifest
ations of the atomic will is something purely ideal,—I might, not to be misunderstood, rather say is imaginary, and only by a considerable license of speech can be called the seat of the will or of energy; for the only spatial elements in the whole affair are the manifestations of force, which never reach the common point of section, in that this always lies only in its ideal prolongation. Nevertheless this point must be definite in relation to others, i.e., the distance of the ideal point of section from all similar points of intersection is determined. Hence it of course follows that this distance may also be changed, i.e., that this point is capable of motion.
What, then, actually happens when two attracting forces approach one another? In the first place, the attraction increases; secondly, the actions on all laterally situated atoms so change their direction that their prevailing ideal points of intersection must be conceived brought nearer to one another; the first and the second change stand in such a relation that the attraction increases n2 times if the diminution of the distance of the points of intersection due to the displacement in direction of the lateral manifestations of force amounts to n. The reality is thus always only the manifestations of force which have a certain direction and strength, and the change of this direction and strength, whereas the points of intersection are and remain something ideal. But the two former, as mental representation, form the content of the atomic will; and one will now understand how the will itself may be somewhat non-spatial, and by no means need reside in the ideal point of intersection, and move about with this, whilst yet the realisations of its content are of spatial nature, and have a common ideal point of intersection, whose position with reference to other ideal points of intersection are definite and variable.—
The question might here be raised whether the atoms have a consciousness. However, I think that data are all too lacking for any decision to be come to thereupon, since with regard to the means required for the production of consciousness and the degree of movement necessary for overstepping the threshold of sensation we still know next to nothing. Thus much, however, we may assert with confidence: if matter has a consciousness it is an atomistic consciousness, and between the consciousnesses of the several atoms no communication is possible. Wherefore it is decidedly erroneous to speak of the consciousness of a crystal or of a heavenly body, for in inorganic bodies can at most the atoms each for itself possess a consciousness. Of course this atom-consciousness would, by reason of poverty of content, assume the lowest place conceivable.—Leibniz, who was not acquainted with the phenomenon of the threshold of sensation, thought himself warranted in deriving from the law of continuity (natura non facit saltus) and from that of analogy () a certain degree of consciousness for each, even the lowest, monad. However this authorisation disappears through the law of the threshold. When carbonic acid gas, e.g., is more and more compressed, it takes up, indeed, a smaller and smaller space, but still always remains gas; suddenly, however, one reaches a point where it is no longer compressible but becomes liquid; this is, so to speak, the threshold of the gaseous condition. So in the scale of individuals or monads, consciousness may become ever poorer and poorer, but always still remain consciousness, until suddenly a point is reached where the decrease is at an end and consciousness ceases, the lower limit of the threshold of sensation being exceeded. But who can in Nature assign this point with certainty?
We shall, in conclusion, have to take notice of the question whether, in our present mode of regarding the atoms as acts of will, we may look upon them as so many substances, or not rather as phenomena of one substance? whether to every atom there corresponds a separate, independent, substantial will,—as a matter of course these also endowed with separate faculty of perception,—or whether a single identical will underlies these many counterworking actions and activities? After having perceived only the opposition, the contradiction of actions, to be the spatially real, but having comprehended the forces themselves as something absolutely non-spatial, every reason disappears for the splitting of will and idea in the eternally non-spatial into an innumerable multiplicity of single substances, and rather the impossibility of the reciprocal action of such isolated and non-contiguous substances compels us to assume that the atoms, just as all individuals, may be altogether merely objectively-real phenomena or manifestations of the All-one in which as in their common root, their real relation to one another may be effected (comp. C. Chap. vii. and xi.) Were the atoms substantially separate and different, the spaces fixed by their unconscious ideational functions would be as numerous as the atoms, and accordingly the spaces realised by the atomistic functions of will would be as numerous as the atoms. There would then not at all come to pass that which makes possible the community of the spatial relations of the atomic functions to one another, namely, the one objectivo-phenomenal, i.e., objectively-real space. Such can only arise by the realisation of the unconscious space-ideas, if these latter in all the atoms only compose the inner multiplicity of the content of a single collective idea; and this, again, is only possible if all the atomic functions are functions of one and the same essence as modes of an absolute substance. For him, who elects to stop short at the pluralism of the atoms regarded as substantially different, there will always remain an inexplicable residue even with our conception of matter; this disappears, however, as soon as the final unavoidable step to metaphysical Monism has been taken.
1 As we shall see that force is only a pseudo-materialistic, but in fact a spiritualistic principle, the consequential Materialism, which, however, has been nowhere advocated in this form, should before all things deny force, i.e., regard Motion as an ultimate, requiring no explanation, as an eternal and original quality of matter. The circumstance that many derivative forces (as magnetic attraction or repulsion between wires traversed by galvanic currents) are, in fact, only results of peculiar combinations of movement, might seduce us to go farther on this road, and to try, whether also the elementary forces of the general attraction of masses (gravitation) and of repulsion in ether could be explained as results of the forms of movement. For this purpose the ether is first of all denied, and a filling of space with very rarefied gases supposed; then repulsion is regarded as a result of heat-vibrations, and finally gravitation is sought to be explained either according to the analogy of the attraction of galvanic currents as a bye-product of transverse (heat or other) vibrations, or as a phenomenon resulting from the repulsion of peripheral strata. (In both cases, certainly, gravitation would not be proportional to the mass of a body, but to its plane of intersection at right angles to the direction of gravitation.) The whole theory is still too much in an embryonic condition to admit of criticism. Only this much stands firm, that matter, with all its contradictions, to be pointed out farther on, is here indispensable, since possibly force, but not motion itself, may be the mobile, and that accordingly this theory stops at two incomprehensible principles, matter and motion; whilst we get along with force alone, which is free from the contradictions of matter, and is itself again not an incomprehensible ultimate, but resolvable into the spiritual principles will and idea; thus in this manner closely joins the material world with the spiritual as consubstantial.
1 Not to be confused with atoms, as is done by the older physicists. Philosophical readers who come to this chapter with a certain prejudice against the physical atomic theory, I refer to Fechner’s memoir “On the Physical and Philosophical Atomic Theory” (Leipzig, 1855), especially pp. 18–63 and 129–141, although since then the physical atomic theory has been very much further developed by the working out of the Theory of Heat. Comp., in reference to the present chapter, my essay, “Dynamism and Atomism (Kant, Ulrici, Fechner),” in the Ges. Phil. Ablandh., No. vii.—In this place only this much need be remarked by way of preliminary, that the splitting up into atoms in a metaphysical sense represents nothing else than the special form in which, in the department of matter, the general philosophical principle of Individuation obtains its realisation.
1 According to Briot (Lehrb. d
. mechan. Wärmetheorie, p. 271), the doubtful power of the distance must be even higher than the fourth, if the transversal light-vibrations are to propagate themselves in the medium of the ether; and it follows from the laws of the propagation of light in doubly-refracting media, as from the absence of dispersion in empty space, that it is probably the sixth power of the distance to which the repulsion of the ethereal atoms is inversely proportional.
1 Comp. Zöllner, “Ueber die Natur der Kometen,” 3 Aufl.
VI.
THE CONCEPTION OF INDIVIDUALITY.
INDIVIDUAL means indivisible (as does atom); but every one knows that individuals may be cut into pieces and divided. We can thus only think of something as individual which in its nature cannot be divided if it is to remain what it is; but this is the notion of unity—Greek monas (not to be confused with the numerical concept of the one, Greek ). According to this, the conceptions unity or monad and individual coincide; but one very soon sees that unity is a wider notion than individual, i.e., every individual is a unity, but not every unity is an individual. Thus every connected form, in virtue of the continuity of space, is a unity. I cannot divide it without annihilating it; still I shall not call the accidental unity of form of a clod, e.g., an individual. Further, every movement or every occurrence possesses a unity in virtue of the continuity of time, e.g., a tone; this unity likewise is not an individual (comp. V. Kirchmann, “Philosophie des Wissens,” vol. i. pp. 131–141, 285–307). The unity of coinherence or of interpenetration, as it appears, e.g., in colours, mixtures of taste or smell, and in different qualities of the same thing, is reducible partly to existence in the same place, partly to the temporal coexistence of different qualities, partly to the causal unity of succession, and can accordingly not be regarded as a particular species of unity. The unity of the causal relation is the strongest that there is. We have to distinguish in it three kinds: (1) Unity by identity of the cause (as in the different perceptions of a thing); (2) unity by reason of identity of the purpose (as in the many contrivances of the eye for seeing); (3) unity by mutual action of the parts, so that the function of each part is cause of the persistence of the other.—These unities also do not suffice for the conception of individuality. An example of the first is the unity of the many perceptions of a thing, so far as they do not directly contain the identity of place and time, but are only referred to the thing as identical causes. Nobody will maintain that the unity of the perception of a thing is an individual. In the second place, if the unity of purpose consists in the construction of a building, we should not call the sum of the workmen which have this purpose an individual. Thirdly, if a country lives on the natural products of its colonies, and the colonies only exist by reason of the importation of the artificial productions of the mother country, there is here a perfect reciprocity, and yet nobody will call the sum of colonies and mother country an individual.
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