THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



FEBRUARY, 1882. 



THE SEVEN WOELD-PROBLEMS. 



Br EMIL DU BOIS-KEYMOKD.* 



WHEN, eight years ago, I undertook to address a public sitting 

 of the Association of German Naturalists and Physicians, I hesi- 

 tated for a long time before deciding to choose the " Limits of our 

 Knowledge of Nature " f as my subject. The impossibility, on the one 

 hand, of comprehending the existence of matter and force, and, on the 

 other hand, of explaining consciousness, even in its lowest degree, on 

 a mechanical theory, seemed to me a truism. That even the simplest 

 sensation can not be made comprehensible as the result of any arrange- 

 ment or movement of matter, has long been recognized by eminent 

 thinkers. Although I knew that false ideas on the last point had been 

 widely diffused, I was almost ashamed to offer so stale a draught, and 

 hoped to awaken interest only through the novelty of my arguments. 

 The reception given my exposition showed me that I had mistaken 

 the condition of the case. Treated coolly at first, my essay soon be- 

 came the object of numerous criticisms, which seemed to come from a 

 diversity of points of view from cordial approbation to utter rejec- 

 tion and censure and the word ignorabimus, in which the investiga- 

 tion culminated, became a kind of philosophical shibboleth. 



Flattering as it was to me to see my exposition regarded as a Kant- 

 ian fact, I must decline the honor, for nothing was contained in it of 

 which any one might not have informed himself by a study of the 

 older philosophical writers. But, since philosophy was perverted by 

 Kant, its culture has taken on so esoteric a character ; it has, so far, 

 unlearned the language of common sense and intelligent thought, and 



* An address delivered in the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, in honor of the birthday 

 of Leibnitz, July 8, 1880. 



f See " Popular Science Monthly," vol. v, p. 17 (May, 1874). 

 tol. xx. 28 



