Science tyto$u$$. 



No. 24. February, 1896. Vol. IV. 



EMANCIPATION FROM SCIENTIFIC 

 MATERIALISM. 1 



IT has at all periods been a source of complaint that so 

 little unanimity should prevail with regard to the 

 most important and fundamental of human problems. In 

 our own times, however, the grievance concerning one of 

 the greatest of these questions has almost disappeared. 

 For, although there still exist many and varied contradic- 

 tions, nevertheless it may be asserted that scarcely in any 

 age has there been so comparatively close an agreement 

 regarding pur conception of the outer world of phenomena 

 as exists in this present scientific century of ours. From 

 mathematician to practising doctor, every scientifically 

 thinking man, if called upon to express his opinion as to 

 the " inner structure " of the universe, would sum up his 

 ideas in the conception that things consisted of atoms in 

 motion, and that these atoms and their mutual forces were 

 the final realities underlying all phenomena. We read and 

 hear, with countless repetition, the statement that the only 

 intelligent explanation of the physical world is to be found 

 in a " Mechanics of the Atoms " ; matter and motion appear 

 as the final principles to which natural phenomena in all 



1 A paper read at the third general sitting of the Assembly of the 

 Society of German Scientists and Physicians at Liibeck, 20th September, 

 1895. B y Wilhelm Ostwald, Professor in Chemistry at the University of 

 Leipzig. Authorised translation by F. G. Donnan and F. B. Kenrick. 



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