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  Anti Duhring   NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. TIME AND SPACE

    We now come to natural philosophy. Here again Herr Dühring has every cause for dissatisfaction with his predecessors.

    Natural philosophy "sank so low that it became a chaotic doggerel founded on ignorance", and "fell to the lot of the prostituted philosophistics of a Schelling and others of that ilk rummaging in the priesthood of the Absolute and hoodwinking the public". Fatigue has saved us from these "deformities", but up to now it has only given place to "instability"; "and as far as the public at large is concerned, it is well known that the disappearance of a great charlatan is often only the opportunity for a lesser but commercially more experienced successor to put out the products of his predecessor under another sign-board again". Natural scientists themselves feel little "inclination to make excursions into the realm of world-encompassing ideas", and consequently jump to "incoherent and hasty conclusions" in the theoretical sphere.

    The need for deliverance is therefore urgent, and by a stroke of good luck Herr Dühring is at hand.

    In order correctly to appreciate the revelations which now follow on the development of the world in time and its limitation in space, we must turn back again to certain passages in World Schematism.

    Infinity -- which Hegel calls bad infinity -- is attributed to being, also in accordance with Hegel (Encyclopaedia §93),[26] and then this infinity is investigated.

    "The clearest form of an infinity which can be conceived without contradiction is the unlimited accumulation of numbers in a numerical series. . . . Just as we can add yet another unit to any number without ever exhausting the possibility of further numbers, so also a further state aligns itself to every state of being, and infinity consists in the unlimited begetting of these states. This exactly conceived infinity has consequently only one single basic form with one single direction. For although it is immaterial to our thinking whether or not it conceives an opposite direction in the accumulation of states, this retrogressing infinity is nevertheless only a rash mental product. Indeed, since in reality this infinity would have to be traversed in the reverse direction, in each of its states it would have an infinite succession of numbers behind it. But this would involve the impermissible contradiction of a counted infinite numerical series, and so it turns out to be contrary to reason to postulate any second direction in infinity."

    The first conclusion drawn from this conception of infinity is that the chain of causes and effects in the world must at some time have had a beginning:

"an infinite number of causes which should have already fallen into line one behind the other is inconceivable, just because it presupposes that the uncountable has been counted."

Thus a final cause is proved.

    The second conclusion is

"the Law of Determinate Number: the accumulation of identities of any actual species of independent things is only conceivable as forming a determinate number". Not only must the number of celestial bodies existing at any point of time be in itself determinate, the total number of all the tiniest independent particles of matter existing in the universe must also be determinate. This latter requisite is the real reason why no combination can be conceived without atoms. Every actual state of being divided invariably has a finite determinateness, and must do so if the contradiction of the counted uncountable is to be avoided. For the same reason, not only must the number of the earth's revolutions round the sun up to the present time be finite though unstatable, but all periodical processes of nature must have had some beginning, and all differentiation, all the successive manifold elements of nature must have their roots in one self-identical state. This state may have existed from eternity without contradiction; but even this idea would be excluded if time in itself were composed of real parts instead of being merely arbitrarily divided up by our minds through the positioning of possibilities. The case is quite different with the real and intrinsically differentiated content of time; this real filling of time with differentiable facts of a certain kind and the forms of being of this sphere are countable precisely because of their differentiation. If we imagine a state in which no change occurs and which in its self-identity offers no differences whatever in the order of succession, the more specialized idea of time is transformed into the more general idea of being. What the accumulation of empty duration would mean is quite unimaginable."

    Thus far Herr Dühring, and he is not a little edified by the significance of these discoveries. At first he hopes that they will "at least not be regarded as paltry truths"; but later we find:

    "If the extremely simple methods by which we helped procure a hitherto unknown scope for the concepts of infinity and their critique are recalled . . . the elements of the universal conception of space and time, which have been given so simple a form by their present sharpening and deepening."

    We helped! Their present deepening and sharpening! Who are "we", and what time is our "present"? Who is deepening and sharpening?

    "Thesis: The world has a beginning in time, and is also limited as regards space.
    "Proof: If we assume that the world has no beginning in time, then up to every given moment an eternity has elapsed, and there has passed away in the world an infinite series of successive states of things. Now the infinity of a series consists in the fact that it can never be completed through successive synthesis. It thus follows that it is impossible for an infinite world-series to have passed away, and that a beginning of the world is therefore a necessary condition of the world's existence. This was the first point that called for proof.
    "As regards the second point, let us again assume the opposite, namely, that the world is an infinite given whole of co-existing things. Now the magnitude of a quantum which is not given in intuition as within certain limits, can be thought only through the synthesis of its parts, and the totality of such a quantum only through a synthesis that is brought to completion through repeated addition of unit to unit. In order, therefore, to think, as a whole, the world which fills all spaces, the successive synthesis of the parts of an infinite world must be viewed as completed, that is, an infinite time must be viewed as having elapsed in the enumeration of all co-existing things. This, however, is impossible. An infinite aggregate of actual things cannot therefore be viewed ns a given whole, nor consequently as simultaneously given. The world is, therefore, as regards extension in space, not infinite, but is enclosed within limits. This was the second point in dispute."

    These sentences are copied word for word from a celebrated book which first appeared in 178I and is called Critique of Pure Reason, by Immanuel Kant, where all and sundry can read them<"p60"> in the first part, Second Division, Book II, Chapter II, Section II: The First Antinomy of Pure Reason.[27] So that Herr Dühring's fame rests solely on his having tacked on the title -- Law of Determinate Number -- to an idea expressed by Kant, and on having made the discovery that there was once a time when as yet there was no time, though there was a world. As for all the rest, that is, anything at all meaningful in Herr Dühring's exegesis, "we" -- is Immanuel Kant, and the "present" is only ninety-five years ago. Certainly "extremely simple"! Remarkable "hitherto unknown scope"!

    But Kant makes absolutely no claim that the above propositions are established by his proof. On the contrary; he states and proves the opposite in a parallel column: that the world has no beginning in time and no end in space; and it is precisely in this that he places the antinomy, the insoluble contradiction, that the one is just as demonstrable as the other. People of smaller calibre might perhaps feel a little doubt here on account of "a Kant" having found an insoluble difficulty. But not our valiant fabricator of "fundamentally original conclusions and views"; he cheerfully copies down as much of Kant's antinomy as suits his purpose and throws the rest aside.

    The problem itself has a very simple solution. Eternity in time, infinity in space, signify from the start, and in the simple meaning of the words, that there is no end in any direction, neither forwards nor backwards, upwards or downwards, to the right or to the left. This infinity is something quite different from that of an infinite series, for the latter always starts from one, with a first term. The inapplicability of this idea of a series to our object becomes clear directly we apply it to space. The infinite series, transferred to the sphere of space, is the line drawn from a definite point in a definite direction to infinity. Is the infinity of space expressed in this even in the remotest way? On the contrary, it requires at least six lines drawn from this one point in three opposite directions to conceive the dimensions of space; and consequently we would have six of these dimensions. Kant saw this so clearly that he transferred his numerical series only indirectly, in a roundabout way, to the spatiality of the world. Herr Dühring, on the other hand, compels us to accept six dimensions in space, and immediately afterwards can find no words adequate to express his indignation at the mathematical mysticism of Gauss, who would not rest content with the usual three dimensions of space.

    As applied to time, the line or series of units which is infinite in both directions has a certain metaphorical meaning. But if we think of time as a series counted from one forward, or as a line starting from a definite point, we imply in advance that time has a beginning: we assume precisely what we are to prove. We give the infinity of time a one-sided, halved character; but a one-sided, halved infinity is also a contradiction in itself, the exact opposite of an "infinity conceived without contradiction". We can only get past this contradiction if we assume that the one from which we begin to count the series, the point from which we proceed to measure the line, is any one in the series, is any one of the points in the line, and that it is a matter of indifference to the series or to the line where we place them.

    But what of the contradiction of "the counted infinite numerical series"? We shall be in a position to examine it more closely as soon as Herr Dühring has performed the clever trick of counting it for us. When he has completed the task of counting from (minus infinity) to 0, let him come again. It is certainly obvious that, wherever he begins to count, he will leave behind him an infinite series and, with it, the task which he has to fulfil. Just let him invert his own infinite series 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 . . . and try to count from the infinite end back to 1; it would obviously only be attempted by a man who has not the faintest understanding of what the problem is. Still more. When Herr Dühring asserts that the infinite series of lapsed time has been counted, he is thereby asserting that time has a beginning; for otherwise he would have been unable to start "counting" at all. Once again, therefore, he smuggles into the argument, as a premise, what he has to prove. The idea of an infinite series which has been counted, in other words, the world-encompassing Dühringian Law of Determinate Number, is therefore a contradiction in adjecto,[*] contains within itself a contradiction, and indeed an absurd contradiction.

    It is clear that an infinity which has an end but no beginning is neither more nor less infinite than one with a beginning but no end. The slightest dialectical insight should have told Herr Dühring that beginning and end necessarily belong together, like the North Pole and the South Pole, and that if the end is left out, the beginning just becomes the end -- the one end which the series has; and vice versa. The whole deception would be impossible but for the mathematical usage of working with infinite series. Because in mathematics it is necessary to start from determinate, finite terms in order to reach the indeterminate, the infinite, all mathematical series, positive or negative, must start with 1, or they cannot be used for calculation. But the logical need of the mathematician is far from being a compulsory law for the real world.

    For that matter, Herr Dühring will never succeed in conceiving real infinity without contradiction. Infinity is a contradiction, it is full of contradictions. It is already a contradiction that an infinity is composed of purely finite terms, and yet this is the case. The limited nature of the material world leads no less to contradictions than its unlimited nature, and every attempt to eliminate these contradictions leads, as we

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    * A contradiction in terms. --Ed.

have seen, to new and worse contradictions. It is just because infinity is a contradiction that it is an infinite process, unrolling endlessly in time and in space. The removal of the contradiction would be the end of infinity. Hegel already understood this quite correctly, and for this reason treated the gentlemen who chop logic over this contradiction with well-merited contempt.

    Let us continue. So time had a beginning. What was there before this beginning? The universe, which was then in a self-identical, unchanging state. And as no changes succeed one another in this state, the more specialized idea of time transforms itself into the more general idea of being. In the first place, we are not in the least concerned here with what concepts change in Herr Dühring's head. The subject at issue is not the concept of time, but real time, which Herr Dühring will by no means rid himself of so cheaply. In the second place, however much the concept of time may be converted into the more general idea of being, this takes us not one step further. For the basic forms of all being are space and time, and being out of time is just as gross an absurdity as being out of space.<"p64"> The Hegelian "timelessly past being" and the neo-Schellingian "unpreconceivable being" are rational ideas compared with this being out of time.[28] For this reason Herr Dühring sets to work very cautiously; actually it is of course time, but of such a kind as cannot really be called time; time does not in itself consist of real parts, and is only divided up arbitrarily by our understanding -- only an actual filling of time with differentiable facts is susceptible of being counted -- what the accumulation of empty duration means is quite unimaginable. What this accumulation is supposed to mean is immaterial here; the question is whether the world, in the state assumed here, has duration, passes through a duration in time. We have long known that we can get nothing by measuring such a duration without content, just as we can get nothing by measuring without aim or purpose in empty space; and Hegel calls this infinity bad precisely because of the tedium of this procedure. According to Herr Dühring, time exists only through change, and change does not exist in and through time. Just because time is different from change, is independent, it is possible to measure it by change, for measurement always requires something different from what is to be measured. And time in which no recognizable changes occur is very far removed from not being time at all ; rather it is pure time, untouched by any foreign admixtures, that is, real time, time as such. In fact, if we want to grasp the idea of time in all its purity, divorced from all foreign and improper admixtures, we are compelled to put aside, as not being relevant here, all the various events which occur simultaneously or successively in time, and in this way to imagine a time in which nothing happens. In this way, we have not let the concept of time be submerged in the general idea of being, but have for the first time arrived at the pure concept of time.

    But all these contradictions and impossibilities are mere child's play compared with the confusion into which Herr Dühring falls with his self-identical initial state of the world. If the world had ever been in a state in which no change whatever was taking place, how could it pass from this state to one of change? The absolutely unchanging, especially when it has been in this state from eternity, cannot possibly get out of such a state by itself and pass over into a state of motion and change. An initial impulse must have therefore come from outside, from outside the universe, an impulse which set it in motion. But as everyone knows, the "initial impulse" is only another expression for God. God and the beyond, which Herr Dühring pretended to have so beautifully unrigged in his world schematism, are both introduced again by him here, sharpened and deepened, into natural philosophy itself.

    Further. Herr Dühring says:

    "Where magnitude is attributed to a constant element of being, it will remain unchanged in its determinateness. This holds good . . . of matter and mechanical energy."

    The first sentence, it may be noted in passing, is a precious example of Herr Dühring's axiomatic-tautological grandiloquence: where magnitude does not change, it remains the same.<"p66"> Therefore the amount of mechanical energy which once exists in the world remains the same for all eternity.[29] We will overlook the fact that, in so far as this is correct, Descartes already knew and said it in philosophy nearly three hundred years ago, that the theory of the conservation of energy has held sway in natural science for the last twenty years; and that in limiting it to mechanical energy Herr Dühring in no way improves on it. But where was the mechanical energy at the time of the unchanging state? Herr Dühring obstinately refuses to give us any answer to this question.

    Where, Herr Dühring, was the eternally self-identical mechanical energy then, and what did it do?

    Answer:

    "The original state of the universe, or more plainly, of an unchanging existence of matter which comprised no accumulation of changes in time is a question which can be spurned only by a mind that sees the acme of wisdom in the self-mutilation of its own potency."

    Therefore, either you accept without examination my unchanging original state, or I, the potent Eugen Dühring, certify you as intellectual eunuchs. Of course, that may frighten off a good many people. But we, who have already seen some examples of Herr Dühring's potency, can permit ourselves to leave this elegant abuse unanswered for the moment, and ask once again: But Herr Dühring, if you please, what about that mechanical energy?

    Herr Dühring at once grows embarrassed. In actual fact, he stammers,

"the absolute identity of that initial boundary state does not in itself provide any principle of transition. But we must remember that at bottom the same holds for every new link, however small, in the chain of existence with which we are familiar. Therefore, whoever wants to raise difficulties in the fundamental case now under consideration must take care that he does not allow himself to pass them by on less obvious occasions. Moreover, there is the possibility of interpolating progressively graduated intermediate stages, and thus of keeping open the bridge of continuity in order to arrive at the extinction of the process of change by moving backwards. It is true that purely conceptually this continuity does not help us get beyond the main idea, but for us it is the basic form of all regularity and of every transition which is otherwise known, so that we are entitled to use it also as a mediation between that initial equilibrium and its disturbance. But if we had conceived the so to speak (!) motionless equilibrium on the model of the concepts which are accepted without any particular objection (!) in our present-day mechanics, there would be no way of explaining how matter could have arrived at the process of change." But apart from the mechanics of masses, there is also, we are told, a transformation of mass movement into the movement of extremely small particles, but as to how this takes place -- "we have no general principle for this at our disposal up to the present, and consequently we should not be surprised if these processes end somewhat in the dark."

    That is all Herr Dühring has to say. In fact, we would have to see the acme of wisdom not only in the self-mutilation of our generative power but also in blind implicit faith, if we allowed ourselves to be put off with these really pitiable and rank subterfuges and circumlocutions. Herr Dühring admits that absolute identity cannot of itself arrive at change. Nor is there any means whereby absolute equilibrium can of itself pass into motion. What is there, then? Three rotten swindles.

    Firstly, it is just as difficult to show the transition from each link, however small, in the chain of existence with which we are familiar to the next one. Herr Dühring seems to think his readers are infants. The establishment of individual transitions and connections between the tiniest links in the chain of existence is precisely the content of natural science, and when there is anything amiss at some point, no one, not even Herr Dühring, thinks of explaining prior motion as having arisen out of nothing, but always only out of a transmission, transformation or propagation of some previous motion. But here the issue is admittedly one of accepting motion as having arisen out of immobility, that is, out of nothing.

    In the second place, we have the "bridge of continuity". Purely conceptually of course, this does not help us over the difficulty, but all the same we are entitled to use it as a mediation between immobility and motion. Unfortunately the continuity of immobility consists in not moving; how therefore it is to produce motion remains more mysterious than ever. And however infinitely small the parts into which Herr Dühring minces his transition from non-motion to universal motion and however long the duration he assigns to it, we have not got a ten-thousandth of a millimetre further. Without an act of creation we can never get from nothing to something, even if the something were as small as a mathematical differential. The bridge of continuity is therefore not even an asses' bridge;* it is passable only for Herr Dühring.

    Thirdly, so long as present-day mechanics holds good -- and according to Herr Dühring it is one of the most essential levers for the formation of thought -- it is absolutely impos-

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    * In the original a play on words: Eselsbrücke (asses' bridge) also means a translation or key used as an unauthorized aid by lazy students. --Ed.

 

sible to explain the passage from immobility to motion. But the mechanical theory of heat shows us that the movement of masses under certain conditions changes into molecular movement (although here too one motion originates from another motion, but never from immobility); and this, Herr Dühring shyly suggests, may possibly furnish a bridge between the strictly static (in equilibrium) and dynamic (in motion). But these processes take place "somewhat in the dark". And that's where Herr Dühring leaves us -- in the dark.

    This is the point we have reached with all his deepening and sharpening -- that we have perpetually gone more deeply into ever sharper nonsense, and finally land up where we were bound to land up -- "in the dark". But this does not abash Herr Dühring much. Right on the next page he has the effrontery to declare that he has

"been able to provide a real content for the idea of self-identical inertia directly from the behaviour of matter and mechanical forces ".

    And this man describes other people as "charlatans"!

    Fortunately, with all this helpless wandering and confusion "in the dark", we are left with one consolation, and this is certainly edifying to the soul:

    "The mathematics of the inhabitants of other celestial bodies can rest on no other axioms than our own!"

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. COSMOGONY, PHYSICS, CHEMISTRY

    Continuing, we come now to the theories concerning the manner in which the present world came into existence. <"p70">

    A state of universal dispersion of matter, we are told, was the point of departure of the Ionic philosophers, but particularly from the time of Kant, the assumption of a primordial nebula played a new role, gravitation and the radiation of heat having been instrumental in the gradual formation of separate solid celestial bodies. The contemporary mechanical theory of heat makes it possible to give conclusions about the earlier states of the universe a far more definite form. However, "the state of gaseous dispersion can be a starting-point for serious deductions only when it is possible more definitely to characterize beforehand the mechanical system given in it. Otherwise, not only does the idea remain extremely nebulous, but also the original fog really grows increasingly dense and impenetrable as the deductions progress; . . . meanwhile it all remains in the vagueness and formlessness of an idea of diffusion that cannot be more closely determined", and so "this gaseous universe only" provides us with "an extremely airy conception".

    The Kantian theory of the origin of all existing celestial bodies from rotating nebular masses was the greatest advance made by astronomy since Copernicus. For the first time the idea that nature had no history in time began to be shaken. Until then the celestial bodies were believed to have remained in the same permanent orbits and states from the beginning; and even though individual organisms on particular celestial bodies died out, genera and species were nevertheless held to be immutable. It is true that nature was conceived as obviously being in constant motion, but this motion appeared as the incessant repetition of the same processes. Kant made the first breach in this conception, which corresponded exactly to the metaphysical mode of thought, and indeed he did it so scientifically that most of the proofs furnished by him still hold good today. At the same time, the Kantian theory is, strictly speaking, still only a hypothesis. But the Copernican world system, too, is still no more than this,* and since the

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    * In Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1888) Engels said of the Copernican system: "For three hundred years [cont. onto p. 71. -- DJR] the Copernican solar system was a hypothesis with a hundred, a thousand or ten thousand chances to one in its favour, but still always a hypothesis. But when Leverrier, by means of the data provided by this system, not only deduced the necessity of the existence of an unknown planet,<"p71"> but also calculated the position in the heavens which this planet must necessarily occupy, and when Galle really found this planet, the Copernican system was proved."[30] See Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Moscow, 1958, Vol. II, p. 336. --Ed.

irrefutable spectroscopic proof of the existence of such red hot gaseous masses in the starry heavens, the scientific opposition to Kant's theory has been silenced. Even Herr Dühring cannot complete his construction of the world without such a nebular stage, but takes his revenge by demanding to be shown the mechanical system existing in this nebular stage, and because no one can do so, he applies all kinds of depreciatory epithets to this nebular stage of the universe. It is a pity contemporary science cannot describe this system to Herr Dühring's satisfaction. It can just as little answer many other questions. To the question, why do toads have no tails? -- to this day it can only answer, because they have lost them. But should anyone get excited over that and say that this is to leave the whole question in the vagueness and formlessness of an idea of loss which cannot be determined more closely and that it is an extremely airy conception, such an application of morals to natural science does not take us one step further. Such expressions of dislike and bad temper can be used always and everywhere, and for that very reason they should never be used anywhere. After all, who is stopping Herr Dühring from discovering the mechanical system of the primordial nebula himself?

    Fortunately we now learn that the Kantian nebular mass "is fat from coinciding with a completely identical state of the world medium, or, to put it another way, with the self-identical state of matter".

    It was really fortunate for Kant that he could be content with going back from the existing celestial bodies to the nebular ball, and that he did not even dream of the self-identical state of matter! It may be remarked in passing that when contemporary natural science describes the Kantian nebular ball as a primordial nebula, it is self-evident that this is only to be understood in a relative sense. It is a primordial nebula, on the one hand, because it is the origin of the existing celestial bodies, and on the other, because it is the earliest form of matter which up to now we have been able to work back to. This certainly does not exclude but rather implies the supposition that matter passed through an infinite series of other forms before the nebular stage.

    Herr Dühring sees his advantage here. Where we stop for the time being in the company of science at the provisional primordial nebula, his science of sciences helps him much further back to that

"state of the world medium which cannot be understood either as purely static in the present meaning of the idea, or as dynamic"

    -- which therefore cannot be understood at all.

"The unity of matter and mechanical energy which we call the world medium is what might be termed a logical-real formula for indicating the self-identical state of matter as the presupposition of all enumerable stages of evolution."

    We are clearly not by a long shot rid of the self-identical primordial state of matter. Here it is spoken of as the unity of matter and mechanical energy, and this as a logical-real formula, etc. Hence, as soon as the unity of matter and mechanical energy comes to an end, motion begins.

    The logical-real formula is nothing but a lame attempt to make the Hegelian categories "in itself" (Ansich ) and "for itself" (Fürsich ) usable in the philosophy of reality. With Hegel, "in itself" covers the original identity of the hidden, undeveloped contradictions within a thing, a process or a concept; "for itself" contains the differentiation and separation of these hidden elements and their antagonism begins. We are therefore to think of the motionless primordial state as the unity of matter and mechanical energy, and of the transition to movement as their separation and opposition. What we have thus gained is not any proof of the reality of that fantastic primordial state, but only the fact that it can be grasped under the Hegelian category of "in itself", and likewise its equally fantastic termination under the category of "for itself". Hegel help us!

    Matter, Herr Dühring says, is the bearer of all reality; accordingly, there can be no mechanical energy apart from matter. Mechanical energy is furthermore a state of matter. Now in the primordial state, when nothing happened, matter and its state, mechanical energy, were one. Afterwards, when something began to happen, this state must apparently have become different from matter. So we are to let ourselves be dismissed with these mystical phrases and with the assurance that the self-identical state was neither static nor dynamic, neither in equilibrium nor in motion. We still do not know where mechanical energy was in that state, and how we are to get from absolute immobility to motion without an impulse from outside, that is, without God.

    The materialists before Herr Dühring spoke of matter and motion. He reduces motion to mechanical energy as its supposed basic form, and thereby makes it impossible to understand the real connection between matter and motion, which moreover was also obscure to all former materialists. And yet it is simple enough. Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, nor can there be. Motion in cosmic space, mechanical motion of smaller masses on the various celestial bodies, the vibration of molecules as heat or as electrical or magnetic currents, chemical decomposition and combination, organic life -- at each given moment each individual atom of matter in the world is in one or another of these forms of motion, or in several forms at once. All rest, all equilibrium, is only relative, only has meaning in relation to one or another definite form of motion. On the earth, for example, a body may be in mechanical equilibrium, may be mechanically at rest; but this in no way prevents it from participating in the motion of the earth and in that of the whole solar system, just as little as it prevents its most minute physical particles from carrying out the vibrations determined by its temperature, or its atoms of matter from passing through a chemical process. Matter without motion is just as inconceivable as motion without matter. Motion is therefore as uncreatable and indestructible as matter itself; as the older philosophy (Descartes) expressed it, the quantity of motion existing in the world is always the same. Motion therefore cannot be created; it can only be transmitted. When motion is transmitted from one body to another, it may be regarded as active and as the cause of motion in so far as it transmits itself, as passive in so far as it is transmitted. We call this active motion energy, and the passive, the manifestation of energy. Hence it is as clear as daylight that the energy is as great as its manifestation, because in fact the same motion takes place in both.

    A motionless state of matter therefore proves to be one of the most empty and nonsensical of ideas -- a "delirious fantasy" of the purest water. In order to arrive at such an idea, it is necessary to conceive as absolute rest the relative mechanical equilibrium in which a body on earth may find itself, and then to extend this absolute rest over the whole universe. This is certainly made easier if universal motion is reduced to purely mechanical energy. And then the restriction of motion to purely mechanical energy has the further advantage that energy can be conceived as at rest, as tied up, and therefore for the moment inoperative. For if the transmission of a motion is a somewhat complex process with a number of intermediate links, as is very often the case, it is possible to postpone the actual transmission to any moment desired by omitting the last link in the chain. This is the case, for instance, if a man loads a gun and postpones the moment when, by the pulling of the trigger, the discharge, the transmission of the motion set free by the combustion of the powder, takes place. It is therefore possible to imagine that during its motionless, self-identical state, matter was loaded with energy, and this, if anything at all, seems to be what Herr Dühring understands by the unity of matter and mechanical energy. This conception is nonsensical, because it transfers as absolute to the entire universe a state which by its nature is relative and which therefore can never be simultaneously applied except to a part of matter. Even if we overlook this point, the difficulty still remains: first, how did the world come to be loaded, since nowadays guns do not load themselves? And second, whose finger then pulled the trigger? We may turn and twist as much as we like, but under Herr Dühring's guidance we always return to -- the finger of God.

    From astronomy our philosopher of reality passes on to mechanics and physics, and complains that in the generation since its discovery the mechanical theory of heat has not been materially advanced beyond the point to which Robert Mayer had gradually developed it. Apart from this, the whole business is still very obscure;

we must "always remember that in the states of motion of matter static relations are also present, and that these latter are not measurable by mechanical work; . . . if we previously described nature as a great worker and now construe this expression strictly, we must add that self-identical states and static relations do not represent mechanical work. So once again we miss the bridge from the static to the dynamic, and if so-called latent heat has so far remained a stumbling-block for theory, we must here too recognize a defect which can least be denied in its cosmic applications."

    All this oracular verbiage is once again nothing but the outpouring of a bad conscience, which is very well aware that with its creation of motion out of absolute immobility it became irretrievably stuck, but is nevertheless ashamed to appeal to the only possible saviour, namely, the creator of heaven and earth. If the bridge from the static to the dynamic, from equilibrium to motion, cannot be found even in mechanics, including the mechanics of heat, under what obligation should Herr Dühring be to find the bridge from his motionless state to motion? In this way he neatly extricates himself from his predicament.

    In ordinary mechanics the bridge from the static to the dynamic is -- the external impulse. If a stone weighing a hundredweight is raised from the ground ten yards into the air and is freely suspended in such a way that it remains hanging there in a self-identical state and in a condition of rest, it would be necessary to have an audience of infants to be able to maintain that the present position of this body does not represent any mechanical work, or that its distance from its previous position is not measurable by mechanical work. Any passer-by will easily explain to Herr Dühring that the stone did not rise of itself to the rope, and any manual of mechanics will tell him that if he lets the stone fall again, it performs in falling just as much mechanical work as was necessary to raise it the ten yards in the air. Even the very simple fact that the stone is hanging up there represents mechanical work, for if it remains hanging long enough, the rope breaks as soon as it is no longer strong enough to bear the weight of the stone as a result of chemical decomposition. But it is to such simple basic forms, to use Herr Dühring's language, that all mechanical processes can be reduced, and the engineer is still to be born who cannot find the bridge from the static to the dynamic, so long as he has a sufficient external impulse at his disposal.

    To be sure, it is a hard nut and a bitter pill for our metaphysician that motion should find its measure in its opposite, in rest. That is indeed a crying contradiction, and every contradiction, according to Herr Dühring, is contrasense. It is none the less a fact that a suspended stone represents a definite quantity of mechanical motion, which is measurable exactly by the weight of the stone and its distance from the ground, and may be used in various ways at will, for example, by its direct fall, by sliding down an inclined plane, or by turning a shaft. The same is true of a loaded gun. From the dialectical standpoint, the possibility of expressing motion in its opposite, in rest, presents absolutely no difficulty. For the dialectical conception the whole antithesis, as we have seen, is only relative; there is no such thing as absolute rest, unconditional equilibrium. Each separate movement strives towards equilibrium, and the total motion again puts an end to the equilibrium. Wherever therefore rest and equilibrium occur, they are the result of limited motion, and it is self-evident that this motion is measurable by its result, can be expressed in it, and can be re-established from it in one form or an other. But Herr Dühring cannot allow himself to be satisfied with so simple a presentation of the matter. As a good metaphysician he first tears open a non-existent yawning gulf between motion and equilibrium and is then surprised that he cannot find any bridge across this self-fabricated gulf. He might just as well mount his metaphysical Rosinante and chase the Kantian "thing-in-itself"; for it is that and nothing else which in the last analysis is hidden away behind this undiscoverable bridge.

    But what about the mechanical theory of heat and the tied up or latent heat which "has remained a stumbling-block" for this theory?

    If a pound of ice at freezing point temperature and under normal atmospheric pressure is transformed by heat into a pound of water of the same temperature, a quantity of heat disappears which would be sufficient to warm the same pound of water from 0ƒ to 79.4ƒ C, or to raise the temperature of 79.4 pounds of water by one degree. If this pound of water is heated to boiling point, that is, to 100ƒ C, and is then transformed into steam of 100ƒ C, the amount of heat that disappears by the time the last of the water has changed into steam<"p78"> is almost seven times greater, or enough to raise the temperature of 537.2 pounds of water by one degree.[31] The heat that disappears is called tied-up. If the steam is again transformed into water by cooling and the water, in its turn, into ice, the same quantity of heat as was previously tied up is now again set free, i.e., is perceptible and measurable as heat. This liberation of heat on the condensation of steam and the freezing of water is the reason why steam is only gradually transformed into water when cooled to 100ƒ, and why a mass of water at freezing point temperature is only very gradually transformed into ice. These are the facts. The question is, what happens to the heat while it is tied up?

    The mechanical theory of heat, according to which heat consists of the vibration of the smallest physically active particles (molecules) of bodies, a vibration which is greater or smaller in accordance with the temperature and the state of aggregation, and which under certain conditions can change into any other form of motion, explains that the heat that has disappeared has done work, has been transformed into work. When ice melts, the close and firm connection between the individual molecules is broken and transformed into a loose juxtaposition; when water at boiling point becomes steam, a state is reached in which the individual molecules have no noticeable influence whatsoever on one another and under the influence of heat even fly apart in all directions. Now it is clear that the individual molecules of a body are endowed with far greater energy in the gaseous state than in the fluid state, and in the fluid state likewise than in the solid state. The tied-up heat has therefore not disappeared, it has merely been transformed and has assumed the form of molecular tension. As soon as the condition under which the separate molecules are able to maintain this absolute or relative freedom in regard to one another ceases to exist -- that is, as soon as the temperature falls below the minimum of either 100ƒ or 0ƒ -- this tension relaxes, the molecules again press towards each other with the same force with which they had previously flown apart; and this force disappears, but only to reappear as heat, and as precisely the same quantity of heat as had previously been tied up. This explanation is of course a hypothesis, as is the whole mechanical theory of heat, since as yet no one has ever seen a molecule, let alone one in vibration. For this very reason, like the whole theory which is still very young, it is certain to be full of defects, but it can at least explain what happens without in any way coming into conflict with the indestructibility and uncreatability of motion, and it can even account in a precise way for the where-abouts of heat during its transformation. Latent, or tied up, heat is therefore in no way a stumbling-block for the mechanical theory of heat. On the contrary, this theory provides the first rational explanation of what takes place, and it involves no stumbling-block except in so far as physicists continue to designate heat which has been transformed into another form of molecular energy by the term "tied-up", which has become obsolete and unsuitable.

    Therefore, the self-identical states and conditions of rest in the solid, liquid and gaseous states of aggregation do represent mechanical work, in so far as mechanical work is the measure of heat. Both the solid crust of the earth and the water of the ocean in their present aggregate states represent a quite definite quantity of liberated heat, to which of course an equally definite quantum of mechanical energy corresponds. In the transition of the gaseous ball from which the earth has developed into the liquid and later mostly into the solid aggregate state, a definite quantum of molecular energy was radiated as heat into cosmic space. Thus the difficulty about which Herr Dühring mumbles mysteriously does not exist, and even if we may come up against defects and gaps in applying the theory cosmically -- defects and gaps which are due to our imperfect means of knowledge -- we nowhere come up against theoretically insuperable obstacles. Here too the bridge from the static to the dynamic is the external impulse -- the cooling or heating brought about by other bodies acting on the object which is in a state of equilibrium. The further we explore this natural philosophy of Dühring's, the more impossible appear all attempts to explain motion out of immobility or to find the bridge over which the purely static, the resting, can by itself pass to the dynamic, to motion.

    With this we have fortunately rid ourselves for a time of the primordial self-identical state. Herr Dühring passes on to chemistry, and takes the opportunity to reveal to us nature's three laws of inertia which have so far been discovered by his philosophy of reality, viz.:

    (1) The quantity of matter in general, (2) that of the simple (chemical) elements, and (3) that of mechanical energy, are constant.

    Hence, the uncreatability and indestructibility of matter and of its simple component parts, in so far as it has them, as well as of motion -- these old facts known the world over and expressed here most inadequately -- this is the only positive thing Herr Dühring can provide us with as a result of his natural philosophy of the inorganic world. We knew all this long ago. But what we did not know was that they were "laws of inertia" and as such "schematic properties of the system of things". It's the same story as we had with Kant.* Herr Dühring picks up some old familiar yarn, sticks a Dühring label on it, and calls it,

"fundamentally original conclusions and views . . . system-creating ideas . . . deep-rooted science".

    But we need not yet despair on this account. Whatever defects even the most deep-rooted science and the best ordered society may have, Herr Dühring can assert one thing with confidence:

    "The amount of gold on hand in the universe must at all times have been the same, and it can have increased or diminished just as little as matter in general."

---

    * See pp. 59-61 above. --Ed.  [Transcriber's Note: See Section 1. -- DJR]

    Unfortunately Herr Dühring does not tell us what we can buy with this "gold on hand".

 

 

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. THE ORGANIC WORLD

    "A single and uniform ladder of intermediate steps leads from the mechanics of pressure and impact to the linking together of sensations and ideas."

    With this assurance Herr Dühring saves himself the trouble of saying anything further about the origin of life, although it might reasonably have been expected that a thinker who had traced the development of the world back to its self-identical state and is so much at home on other celestial bodies would have known exactly what's what on this point too. For the rest, the assurance he gives us is only half right unless it is completed by the Hegelian nodal line of measure relations which has already been mentioned.* Despite all gradualness, the transition from one form of motion to another always remains a leap, a decisive change. This is true of the transition from the mechanics of celestial bodies to that of smaller masses on a particular celestial body; it is equally true of the transition from the mechanics of masses to the mechanics of molecules -- including the forms of motion investigated in physics proper, heat, light, electricity and magnetism. In the same way, the transition from the physics of molecules to the physics of atoms -- chemistry -- in turn involves a decided leap; and this is even more clearly the case in the transition from ordinary chemical action to the

---

    * See p. 56 above. --Ed.

chemism of protein which we call life.[32] Then within the sphere of life the leaps become ever more infrequent and imperceptible. -- Once again, therefore, it is Hegel who has to correct Herr Dühring.

    The concept of purpose provides Herr Dühring with the conceptual transition to the organic world. Once again, this is borrowed from Hegel, who in his Logic -- the Doctrine of the Notion -- makes the transition from chemism to life by means of teleology, or the science of purpose. Wherever we look in Herr Dühring, we run into a Hegelian "crudity", which he quite unblushingly gives out as his own deep-rooted science. It would take us too far afield to investigate here the extent to which it is legitimate and appropriate to apply the ideas of means and end to the organic world. In any case, even the application of the Hegelian "inner purpose" -- i.e., a purpose which is not imported into nature by some third party acting purposively, such as the wisdom of providence, but which lies in the necessity of the thing itself -- constantly leads people who are not too well versed in philosophy to the thoughtless interpolation of conscious and purposive activity. The same Herr Dühring who is filled with boundless moral indignation at the slightest "spiritistic" tendency in other people assures us

"with certainty that the instinctive sensations were primarily created for the sake of the satisfaction involved in their activity".

    He tells us that poor nature

"is obliged incessantly to re-establish order in the world of objects", and in doing so she has to settle more than one matter, "which requires more subtlety on nature's part than is usually credited to her". But nature not only knows why she does one thing or another, she not only has to perform the duties of a housemaid, she not only possesses subtlety, in itself a pretty good accomplishment in subjective conscious thought, she also has a will. For what the instincts do in addition, incidentally fulfilling real natural functions such as nutrition, propagation, etc., "we should regard not as directly, but only as indirectly, willed ".

    So we have arrived at a consciously thinking and acting nature, and are thus already standing on the "bridge" -- not indeed from the static to the dynamic, but from pantheism to deism. Or is Herr Dühring perhaps just for once indulging in a little "natural-philosophical semi-poetry"?

    Impossible. All our philosopher of reality can tell us of organic nature is restricted to the fight against this natural philosophical semi-poetry, against "charlatanism with its frivolous superficialities and pseudo-scientific mystifications", against the "poetizing features" of Darwinism.

    The main reproach levelled against Darwin is that he transferred the Malthusian population theory from political economy to natural science, that he was held captive by the ideas of the animal breeder, that in his theory of the struggle for existence he pursued unscientific semi-poetry, and that the whole of Darwinism, after subtracting what had been borrowed from Lamarck, is a piece of brutality directed against humanity.

    Darwin brought back from his scientific travels the view that plant and animal species are not constant but subject to variation. In order to follow up this idea after his return home, there was no better field available than that of the breeding of animals and plants. It is precisely in this field that England is the classical country; the achievements of other countries, for example Germany, fall far short of what England has achieved in this connection. Moreover, most of these successes have been won during the last hundred years, so that there is little difficulty in establishing the facts. Now Darwin found that this breeding artificially produced differences among animals and plants of the same species greater than those occurring in what are generally recognized as different species. Thus there was established the variability of species up to a certain point, on the one hand, and the possibility of a common ancestry for organisms with different specific characteristics, on the other. Darwin then investigated whether there were not possibly causes in nature which -- without the conscious intention of the breeder -- would nevertheless necessarily produce in living organisms over the long run changes similar to those produced by artificial breeding. He discovered these causes in the disproportion between the immense number of embryonic germs created by nature and the insignificant number of organisms actually attaining maturity. But as each embryonic germ strives to develop, there necessarily arises a struggle for existence which manifests itself not merely as direct bodily combat or devouring but also as a struggle for space and light, even in the case of plants. It is evident that in this struggle those individuals possessing some individual characteristic, however insignificant, which nevertheless gives them an advantage in the struggle for existence, will have the best prospect of reaching maturity and propagating themselves. These individual characteristics have thus the tendency to descend by heredity, and when they occur among many individuals of the same species, to become enhanced through accumulated heredity in the direction once taken; while those individuals without these characteristics succumb more easily in the struggle for existence and gradually disappear. In this way a species is modified through natural selection, through the survival of the fittest.

    Against this Darwinian theory Herr Dühring now says that the origin of the idea of the struggle for existence, as, he claims, Darwin himself admitted, has to be sought in a generalization of the views of the economist and population theorist, Malthus, and that the idea therefore suffers from all the defects inherent in Malthus' clerical views on over-population.

    Now Darwin would not dream of saying that the origin of the idea of the struggle for existence is to be found in Malthus. He only says that his theory of the struggle for existence is the theory of Malthus applied to the animal and plant world as a whole. However great Darwin's blunder in accepting the Malthusian theory so naively and uncritically, anyone can see at the first glance that no Malthusian spectacles are required to perceive the struggle for existence in nature -- the contradiction between the countless host of embryonic germs nature so lavishly produces and the small number of those which can ever reach maturity, a contradiction which in fact finds its solution for the most part in a struggle for existence -- often of extreme cruelty. And just as the law of wages has retained its validity even after the Malthusian arguments on which Ricardo based it have long been consigned to oblivion, so the struggle for existence can take place in nature, even without any Malthusian interpretation. For that matter, the organisms of nature also have their laws of population which have been left practically uninvestigated, although their establishment would be of decisive importance for the theory of the evolution of species. But who was it that lent the decisive impetus to work in this direction too? None other than Darwin.

    Herr Dühring carefully avoids an examination of this positive side of the question. Instead, the struggle for existence is picked on again and again. It is obvious, according to him, that there can be no talk of a struggle for existence among unconscious plants and good-natured plant-eaters:

    "In the precise and definite sense the struggle for existence is found in the realm of the brutes to the extent that they get their food by devouring their prey."

    After he has reduced the concept of the struggle for existence to these narrow limits, he can give full vent to his indignation at the brutality of this concept, which he himself has thus restricted to the realm of the brutes. But this moral indignation only rebounds upon Herr Dühring himself, for he is the sole author of this narrowly conceived struggle for existence and is therefore solely responsible for it. It is consequently not Darwin who

"seeks the laws and understanding of all nature's actions in the domain of the beast" --

Darwin had in fact expressly included the whole of organic nature in the struggle -- but an imaginary bugbear dressed up by Herr Dühring himself. The name struggle for existence can for that matter be willingly sacrificed to Herr Dühring's highly moral indignation. That the fact exists among plants also can be demonstrated to him by every meadow, every corn field, every wood; and the question at issue is not whether it is to be called "struggle for existence" or "lack of conditions of life and mechanical effects", but how this fact influences the preservation or variation of species. On this point Herr Dühring maintains an obstinate and self-identical silence. Therefore for the time being we may as well stick to natural selection.

    But Darwinism "produces its transformations and differences out of nothing".

    It is true that, when considering natural selection, Darwin leaves out of account the causes which have produced the variations in separate individuals, and deals in the first place with the way in which such individual deviations gradually become the characteristics of a race, variety or species. To Darwin it was of less immediate importance to discover these causes -- which up to the present are in part completely unknown, and in part can only be stated in quite general terms -- than to find a rational form in which their effects become fixed, acquire permanent significance. It is true that in doing this Darwin attributed to his discovery too wide a field of action, made it the sole agent in the variation of species and neglected the causes of repeated individual variations for the form in which these variations become general; but this is the kind of mistake which he shares with most other people who make any real advance. Moreover, if Darwin produces his individual transformations out of nothing and thus exclusively applies "the wisdom of the breeder", the breeder, too, must produce his transformations in animal and plant forms out of nothing, transformations which are not merely imaginary but real. But once again, the man who gave the impetus to the investigation of how exactly these transformations and differences arise is none other than Darwin.

    The idea of natural selection has recently been extended, particularly by Haeckel, and the variation of species conceived as a result of the mutual interaction of adaptation and heredity, with adaptation being represented as the variation-producing factor and heredity as the preserving factor in the process. This again displeases Herr Dühring.

    "Real adaptation to conditions of life which are offered or withheld by nature presupposes impulses and actions determined by ideas. Otherwise the adaptation is only apparent, and the operative causality does not rise above the low grades of the physical, chemical and plant-physiological."

    Once again it is the name which makes Herr Dühring angry. But whatever name he may give the process, the question here is whether variations in the species of organisms are produced through such processes or not. And again Herr Dühring gives no answer.

    "If, in growing, a plant takes the path along which it will receive most light, this effect of the stimulus is nothing but a combination of physical forces and chemical agents, and any attempt to describe it as adaptation -- not metaphorically but literally -- must introduce a spiritistic confusion into the concepts."

Such is the severity meted out to others by the very man who knows exactly by whose will nature does one thing or another, who speaks of nature's subtlety and even of her will ! Spiritistic confusion, yes -- but where, in Haeckel or in Herr Dühring?

    And not only spiritistic, but also logical, confusion. We saw that Herr Dühring insists with might and main on establishing the validity in nature of the concept of purpose:

    "The relation between means and end does not in the least presuppose a conscious intention."

    What, then, is adaptation without conscious intention, without the mediation of ideas which he so zealously opposes, if not such unconscious purposive activity?

    If therefore tree-frogs and leaf-eating insects are green, desert animals sandy-yellow, and animals of the polar regions mainly snow-white in colour, they have certainly not adopted these colours on purpose or in conformity with any idea; on the contrary, the colours can only be explained on the basis of physical forces and chemical agents. Yet it cannot be denied that these animals are purposively adapted through those colours to the environment in which they live, since they have thus become far less visible to their enemies. In the same way the organs with which certain plants seize and devour insects alighting on them are adapted to this action, and even purposively adapted. Consequently, if Herr Dühring insists that this adaptation must be effected through ideas, he is only saying in other words that purposive activity must likewise be brought about through ideas, must be conscious and intentional. As is usually the case in the philosophy of reality, this again brings us to a purposive creator, to God.

    "An explanation of this kind used to be called deism, and was not thought much of" -- Herr Dühring tells us -- "but in this connection, too, things now seem to have retrogressed."

    From adaptation we now move on to heredity. Here, too, according to Herr Dühring, Darwinism is completely on the wrong track. The whole organic world, Darwin is said to have asserted, descended from one primordial being, is so to speak the progeny of one single being. For Darwin, it is alleged, there is no such thing as the independent coexistence of homogeneous products of nature unmediated by descent, and therefore Darwin with his backward-looking views had perforce to come to a dead end immediately at the point where the thread of procreation or other reproduction breaks off.

    To put it politely, the statement that Darwin traced all existing organisms back to one primordial being is a product of Herr Dühring's "own free creation and imagination". Darwin expressly says on the last page but one of his Origin of Species, sixth edition, that he regards <"p90">

"all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings ".[33]

    Haeckel goes considerably further, assuming

"a quite independent stock for the vegetable kingdom, a second for the animal kingdom", and between the two "a number of independent stocks of protista, each of which, quite independently of the former, has developed out of one special archegon of the moneron type" (Schöpfungsgeschichte,[*] p. 397).[34]

    This primordial being was only invented by Herr Dühring in order to bring it into as great disrepute as possible by drawing a parallel with the original Jew Adam; and in this he -- that is to say, Herr Dühring -- has the bad luck to be ignorant of the fact that [George] Smith's Assyrian discoveries have shown that this original Jew emerged from the chrysalis of the original Semite, and that the whole biblical history of the creation and the flood turns out to be a fragment of the old cycle of heathen religious myths which the Jews have in common with the Babylonians, Chaldeans and Assyrians.

    It is certainly a bitter and unanswerable reproach against Darwin that he comes to a dead end immediately at the point where the thread of descent breaks off. Unfortunately it is a reproach earned by the whole of our natural science. Where the thread of descent breaks off for it, it is at "a dead end". It has not yet succeeded in producing organic beings without descent; indeed, it has not yet succeeded in producing even simple protoplasm or other proteins out of chemical elements. With regard to the origin of life, therefore, so far natural science is only able to say with certainty that it must have been the result of chemical action. But perhaps the philosophy of reality is in a position to give some help on this point, as it has at its disposal the independent coexistence of products of nature unmediated by descent. How can these have come into existence? By spontaneous generation? But even the most audacious advocates of spontaneous generation have not as yet claimed that it has produced anything but bacteria, spores of moulds and other very primitive organisms -- no <"fnp91">

---

    * The Natural History of Creation. --Ed.

insects, fishes, birds or mammals. But if these homogeneous products of nature -- organic, of course, as here we are only dealing with such -- are not connected by descent, they or each of their ancestors must have been put into the world by a separate act of creation at the point "where the thread of descent breaks off". So we arrive once again at a creator and at what is called deism.

    Herr Dühring further declares that it was very superficial on Darwin's part "to make the mere act of the sexual composition of properties the fundamental principle of the origin of these properties".

    This is another free creation and imagination of our deep-rooted philosopher's. Darwin categorically states the opposite: the expression natural selection only comprises the preservation of variations, not their origin (p. 63). This new imputation to Darwin of things he never said nevertheless helps us to grasp the profundity of Dühringian thought in the following:

    "If some principle of independent variation had been sought in the inner schematism of generation, this idea would have been quite rational; for it is a natural idea to combine the principle of universal genesis with that of sexual propagation into a unity, and to regard so-called spontaneous generation, from a higher standpoint, not as the absolute antithesis of reproduction but just as a production."

    And the man who can write such a farrago is not ashamed to reproach Hegel for his "jargon"!

    But enough of the peevish, contradictory grumbling and nagging with which Herr Dühring gives vent to his anger at the colossal upsurge natural science owes to the impetus of the Darwinian theory. Neither Darwin nor his followers among natural scientists ever think of in any way belittling the great services rendered by Lamarck; in fact, they are the very people who first put him up again on his pedestal. But we must not overlook the fact that in Lamarck's time science was as yet far from having sufficient material available to enable it to answer the question of the origin of species except in an anticipatory way, prophetically, as it were. In addition to the enormous mass of material, both of descriptive and anatomical botany and zoology, which has accumulated in the interim, two completely new sciences have arisen since Lamarck's time which are of decisive importance here, the study of the development of plant and animal embryos (embryology) and that of the organic remains preserved in the various strata of the earth's surface (palaeontology). There is in fact a peculiar agreement between the gradual development of organic embryonic germs into mature organisms and the sequence of plants and animals succeeding each other in the history of the earth. And it is precisely this agreement which has given the theory of evolution its most secure basis. But the theory of evolution itself is still very young, and there is no doubt therefore that further research will very appreciably modify our present conceptions of the process of the evolution of species, including the strictly Darwinian ones.

    What has the philosophy of reality to say of a positive character about the evolution of organic life?

    "The . . . variability of species is an acceptable assumption." But in addition "the independent coexistence of homogeneous products of nature, unmediated by descent", is valid, too.

    From this we are apparently to infer that the heterogeneous products of nature, i.e., the species showing variations, descend from each other, but not so the homogeneous products. But this is not altogether correct either; for even with species which show variations "mediation by descent is on the contrary quite a secondary act of nature".

    So we get descent after all, but only "second class". Let us rejoice that, after Herr Dühring has ascribed so much that is evil and obscure to descent, we nevertheless find it finally readmitted by the backdoor. It is the same with natural selection, for, after all his moral indignation over the struggle for existence through which natural selection operates, we suddenly read:

    "The deeper basis of the constitution of creatures is thus to be sought in the conditions of life and cosmic relations, while the natural selection emphasized by Darwin can only come in as a secondary factor."

    So we get natural selection after all, though only second class, and along with natural selection also the struggle for existence, and with that also Malthus' clerical over-population! That is all, and for the rest Herr Dühring refers us to Lamarck.

    In conclusion he warns us against the misuse of the terms metamorphosis and development. Metamorphosis, he maintains, is an obscure concept, and the concept of development is permissible only in so far as laws of development can be really established. In place of both these terms we should use the term "composition", and then everything would be all right. It is the old story over again: things remain as they were, and Herr Dühring is quite satisfied as soon as we just change the names. When we speak of the development of the chicken in the egg, we are creating confusion, for we are able to prove the laws of development only in an incomplete way. But if we speak of its composition, everything becomes clear. We shall therefore no longer say: This child is developing splendidly, but: It is composing itself magnificently. We can congratulate Herr Dühring on being a worthy peer of the author of the Nibelungenring<"p94"> not only in his noble self-esteem but also in his capacity as a composer of the future.[35]

VIII

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. THE ORGANIC WORLD

    "Ponder . . . how much positive knowledge is required to equip our section on natural philosophy with all its scientific premises. Its basis is provided firstly by all the essential achievements of mathematics, then by the principal propositions established by exact science in mechanics, physics and chemistry, as well as by the general conclusions of natural science in physiology, zoology and similar branches of inquiry."

    Such is the confidence and assurance with which Herr Dühring speaks of the mathematical and scientific erudition of Herr Dühring. It is impossible to detect from the meagre section concerned, and still less from its even more paltry conclusions, what deep-rooted positive knowledge lies hidden behind them. In any case, in order to create the Dühring oracles on physics and chemistry, it is not necessary to know any more of physics than the equation which expresses the mechanical equivalent of heat, or any more of chemistry than that all bodies can be divided into elements and combinations of elements. Moreover, a person who can talk of "gravitating atoms", as Herr Dühring does (p. 131), only proves that he is completely "in the dark" on the difference between atoms and molecules. As is well known, atoms do not exist in relation to gravitation or other mechanical or physical forms of motion, but only in relation to chemical action. And if anyone should read as far as the chapter on organic nature, with its empty, self-contradictory and, at the decisive point, oracularly senseless drivel and with its absolutely fatuous conclusion, he will be forced from the very start to the opinion that Herr Dühring is here speaking of things of which he knows remarkably little. This opinion becomes certainty when the reader reaches his proposal that the term composition should be used instead of development in the science of organic beings (biology). The person who can make such a proposal shows that he has not the slightest inkling of the formation of organic bodies.

    All organic bodies, except the very lowest, consist of cells, small globules of protein which are only visible when considerably magnified, with a cell nucleus inside. As a rule the cells also develop an outer membrane and the contents are then more or less liquid. The lowest cellular bodies consist of a single cell; the immense majority of organic beings are multicellular, interrelated complexes of many cells which in lower organisms remain of a homogeneous type, but in higher organisms assume more and more varied forms, groupings and functions. In the human body, for example, bones, muscles, nerves, tendons, ligaments, cartilages, skin, in a word, all tissues, are either composed of cells or originated from them. But in all organic cellular structures, from the amoeba,<"p96"> which is a simple and generally skinless globule of protein with a nucleus inside, up to man, and from the tiniest unicellular Desmidiaceae[36] up to the most highly developed plant, the manner in which the cells multiply is the same, by division. The cell nucleus first becomes constricted in the middle, the constriction separating the two halves of the nucleus gets more and more pronounced, and at last they separate from each other and form two cell nuclei. The same process takes place in the cell itself; each of the two nuclei becomes the centre of an accumulation of cellular substance, linked to the other by a strip which steadily grows narrower, until at last the two separate from each other and continue to exist as independent cells. Through such repeated cell division the whole animal is gradually developed in full out of the embryonal vesicle of the animal egg after it has been fertilized, and the replacement of used-up tissues is effected in the same way in the adult animal. To call such a process composition and to say that to describe it as development is "pure imagination" undoubtedly indicates a person who -- however difficult this may be to believe at the present day -- knows absolutely nothing of this process; here it is precisely and exclusively development that is going on, and indeed development in the most literal sense, and composition has absolutely nothing to do with it!

    Later on we shall have something more to say about what Herr Dühring understands in general by life. In particular, he pictures life as follows:

    "The inorganic world too is a system of automatic movements; but it is only at the point where real differentiation and the interposition of the circulation of substances through special channels from one internal point and according to an embryonic scheme transmissible to a smaller structure begins that we may venture to speak of real life in the narrower and stricter sense."

    In the narrower and stricter sense, this sentence is a system of automatic movements (whatever they may be) making nonsense, quite apart from its hopelessly confused grammar. If life first begins where real differentiation commences, we must declare the whole Haeckelian kingdom of protista and perhaps much else besides to be dead, according to the meaning we attach to the concept of differentiation. If life only begins when this differentiation can be transmitted through a smaller embryonic scheme, then at least all organisms up to and including unicellular ones are not living things. If the interposition of the circulation of substances through special channels is the distinguishing mark of life, then, in addition to the foregoing, we must strike from the ranks of the living the whole of the higher class of the Coelenterata (excepting however the Medusae), that is, all polyps and other plant-animals.[37] If the circulation of substances through special channels from one internal point is the essential characteristic of life, then we must declare that all those animals with no heart and those with more than one heart are dead. That is, besides those already enumerated,<"p98a"> all worms, starfish and rotifers (Annuloida and Annulosa, Huxley's classification[38]), a section of the Crustacea, and finally even a vertebrate animal, the Amphioxus.[39] And moreover all plants.

    Thus, in undertaking to define real life in the narrower and stricter sense, Herr Dühring gives us four totally self-contradictory distinguishing marks of life, one of which condemns to eternal death not only the whole vegetable kingdom but also about half the animal kingdom. Really, no one can say that he misled us when he promised us "fundamentally original conclusions and views"!

    Another passage runs:

    "In nature, too, one simple type is the basis of all organisms, from the lowest to the highest," and this type is "fully and completely present in its general essence even in the most subordinate impulse of the most undeveloped plant".

    This statement is again "full and complete" nonsense. The most simple type found in the whole of organic nature is the cell; and certainly it is the basis of the highest organisms. On the other hand, among the lowest organisms there are many which are far below the cell -- the protamoeba, a simple globule of protein without any differentiation whatever, and a whole series of other monera and all bladder seaweeds (Siphoneae). All these are linked with the higher organisms only by the fact that their essential component is protein and that they consequently perform the functions of protein, i.e., live and die.

    Herr Dühring further tells us:

    "Physiologically, sensation is bound up with the presence of some kind of nervous apparatus, however simple. It is therefore characteristic of all animal beings that they are capable of sensation, i.e., of a subjectively conscious apprehension of their states. The sharp border line between plant and animal lies at the place where the leap to sensation occurs. So far from being obliterated by the known transitional structures, this border line becomes a logical necessity precisely through these externally undecided or undecidable forms."

    And again:

    "On the other hand, plants are completely and for all time devoid of the slightest trace of sensation and even of any capacity for it."

    In the first place, Hegel says (Philosophy of Nature, German ed., § 351, Addendum) that

"sensation . . . is the differentia specifica, the absolutely characteristic feature of the animal".[40]

    So once again we find a Hegelian "crudity", which through the simple process of annexation by Herr Dühring is elevated to the noble rank of a final and ultimate truth.

    In the second place, we hear for the first time here of transitional structures, externally undecided or undecidable forms (fine gibberish!) between plant and animal. That these intermediate forms exist; that there are organisms of which we cannot say flatly that they are plants or animals; that therefore we are wholly unable to draw a sharp border line between plant and animal -- it is precisely this fact that makes it a logical necessity for Herr Dühring to establish a criterion of differentiation which in the same breath he admits is unsound! But we have no need whatever to go back to the doubtful territory between plants and animals; are the sensitive plants which at the slightest touch fold their leaves or close their flowers, are the insect-eating plants devoid of the slightest trace of sensation and even of any capacity for it? This cannot be asserted even by Herr Dühring without "unscientific semi-poetry".

    In the third place, it is once again a free creation and imagination on Herr Dühring's part when he asserts that sensation is physiologically bound up with the presence of some kind of nervous apparatus, however simple. Not only all primitive animals, but also the plant-animals, or at any rate the great majority of them, show no trace of a nervous apparatus. It is only from the worms on that such an apparatus is regularly found, and Herr Dühring is the first person to make the assertion that those animals have no sensation because they have no nerves. Sensation is not necessarily associated with nerves, but quite probably with certain proteins which up to now have not been more precisely determined.

    For the rest, Herr Dühring's biological knowledge is sufficiently characterized by the question which he is not afraid to put to Darwin: "Is it to be supposed that animals have developed out of plants?" Such a question could only be put by a person who has not the slightest knowledge of either animals or plants.

    Of life in general Herr Dühring can only tell us:

    "The metabolism which is carried out through a plastically creating schematization" (what in the world can that be?) "always remains a distinguishing characteristic of the real life process."

    That is all we learn about life, while incidentally the "plastically creating schematization" leaves us stuck knee-deep in the meaningless twaddle of the purest Dühring jargon. If therefore we want to know what life is, we shall evidently have to search for it more closely ourselves.

    That organic metabolism is the most general and most characteristic phenomenon of life has been said times out of number during the last thirty years by physiological chemists and chemical physiologists, and it is here merely translated by Herr Dühring into his own elegant and lucid language. But to define life as organic metabolism is to define life as -- life; for organic metabolism or metabolism with plastically creating schematization is precisely a phrase which in its turn itself needs explanation through life, explanation through the distinction between the organic and the inorganic, that is, that which is living and that which is not living. This explanation therefore does not get us any further.

    Metabolism as such takes place even without life. There is a whole series of processes in chemistry which, given an adequate supply of raw material, constantly reproduce their own conditions, and in such a way that a definite body is the carrier of the process. This is the case in the manufacture of sulphuric acid by the burning of sulphur. In this process sulphur dioxide, SO2, is produced, and when steam and nitric acid are added, the sulphur dioxide absorbs hydrogen and oxygen and is converted into sulphuric acid, H2S02. The nitric acid gives off oxygen and is reduced to nitric oxide; this nitric oxide immediately re-absorbs new oxygen from the air and is transformed into the higher oxides of nitrogen, but only to transfer this oxygen immediately to sulphur dioxide and to go through the same process again; so that theoretically an infinitesimal quantity of nitric acid should suffice to change an unlimited quantity of sulphur dioxide, oxygen and water into sulphuric acid.

    Metabolism also takes place in the passage of liquids through dead organic and even through inorganic membranes, as in Traube's artificial cells. Here too it is clear that we cannot get any further by means of metabolism; for the peculiar exchange of matter which is to explain life needs itself to be explained through life. We must therefore try some other way.

    Life is the mode of existence of proteins (Eiweisskorper ),[41] and this mode of existence essentially consists in the constant self-renewal of the chemical constituents of these bodies.

    The term Eiweisskorper is used here in the sense in which it is employed in modern chemistry, which includes under this name all bodies constituted similarly to ordinary white of egg, otherwise also known as protein substances. The name is an unhappy one, because ordinary white of egg plays the most lifeless and passive role of all the substances related to it, since, together with the yolk, it is merely food for the developing embryo. But while so little is yet known of its chemical composition, this name is better than any other because it is more general.

    Wherever we find life, we find it associated with proteins, and wherever we find a protein not in the process of dissolution, there also without exception we find phenomena of life. Undoubtedly, the presence of other chemical combinations is also necessary in a living body in order to evoke particular differentiations of these phenomena of life; but they are not requisite for naked life, except in so far as they enter the body as food and are transformed into protein. The lowest living beings known to us are in fact nothing but simple globules of protein, and they already exhibit all the essential phenomena of life.

    But what are these universal phenomena of life which are equally present among all living organisms? Above all, the fact that a protein absorbs other appropriate substances from its environment and assimilates them, while other, older parts of the body are decomposed and are excreted. Other, non-living, bodies also change, are decomposed or combine in the natural course of events; but in doing this they cease to be what they were. A rock worn away by atmospheric action is no longer a rock; metal which oxidizes turns into rust. But what is the cause of destruction for non-living bodies is the fundamental condition of existence for protein. From the moment when this uninterrupted metamorphosis of its constituents, this constant alternation of nutrition and excretion, comes to an end in protein, from that moment the protein itself comes to an end, it decomposes, that is, dies. Life, the mode of existence of protein, therefore consists primarily in the fact that every moment it is itself and at the same time something else; and this not as a result of a process to which it is subjected from without, which may also be the case with inanimate bodies. On the contrary, life, the metabolism which takes place through nutrition and excretion, is a self-implementing process which is inherent in, native to, its bearer, protein, without which it cannot exist. From which it follows that if chemistry ever succeeds in producing protein artificially, this protein must show the phenomena of life, however weak these may be. It is certainly open to question whether chemistry will at the same time also discover the right food for this protein.

    From metabolism -- the essential function of protein -- by means of nutrition and excretion and from its peculiar plasticity there are derived all the other most elementary processes of life: capacity for excitation, which is already included in the interaction between the protein and its food; contractibility, which is shown, already at a very low stage, in the consumption of food; the possibility of growth, which in the lowest stage includes propagation by division; internal movement, without which neither the consumption nor the assimilation of food is possible.

    Our definition of life is naturally very inadequate because, so far from including all the phenomena of life, it has to be limited to the simplest and the commonest of all. All definitions are scientifically of little value. In order to gain an exhaustive knowledge of what life is, we should have to go through all the forms in which it appears, from the lowest to the highest. But for ordinary usage such definitions are very convenient and in places cannot well be dispensed with; nor can they do any harm, provided their inevitable deficiencies are not forgotten.

    But back to Herr Dühring. When things are faring badly with him in the sphere of earthly biology, he knows where to find consolation, he takes refuge in his starry heaven.

    "It is not merely the special apparatus of an organ of sensation but the whole objective world which is adapted to the production of pleasure and pain. For this reason we take it for granted that the antithesis between pleasure and pain, and indeed exactly in the form with which we are familiar, is a universal antithesis, and must be represented in the various worlds of the universe by essentially homogeneous feelings. . . . This conformity, however, is of no little significance, for it is the key to the universe of sensations. . . . Hence the subjective cosmic world is not much more unfamiliar to us than the objective. The constitution of both spheres must be conceived according to one harmonious type, and we have the beginnings of a science of consciousness here whose range is wider than merely terrestrial."

    What do a few gross blunders in terrestrial natural science matter to the man who carries in his pocket the key to the universe of sensations? Allons donc! *

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    * Get on with you! --Ed.