EM A NCI PA TION FROM SCIENTIFIC MA TERIA LISM. 435 



many relations — some already known, some new — which 

 may by this principle be directly written down, but which 

 formerly could be deduced only by more or less clumsy 

 calculations. 1 must also forbear from discussing the 

 new phases which have been exhibited in the light of 

 general energetical considerations by the other earlier 

 laws of thermodynamics — the most extended branch of 

 Energetics. All these things must indeed be so if what 

 I said concerning the importance of this new way of con- 

 sidering nature is well founded. 



There is a final question which I would not like to pass 

 untouched. When we once succeed in grasping in its pure 

 entirety a fruitful and important truth we are only too apt 

 to look upon it as all-comprehensive. This mistake we see 

 daily committed in science, and the conception to the com- 

 bating of which I have devoted the half of the time allowed 

 me has arisen from exactly such a cause. We shall forth- 

 with have to ask ourselves the question: Is energy, necessary 

 and useful as it is for the understanding of nature, also 

 sufficient for this purpose ? Or are there phenomena which 

 cannot be completely represented by the known laws of 

 energy ? 



I do not think I can better justify the responsibility 

 which 1 have by these remarks incurred towards you 

 than by emphasising the fact that this question must be 

 answered in the negative. Immense as are the advantages 

 possessed by the energetical conception of the universe 

 over the mechanical or materialistic, it seems to me, never- 

 theless, that already certain points may be noted which are 

 not covered by the known laws of energy, and which 

 therefore point to the existence of principles which extend 

 beyond these. Energetics will remain beside these new 

 laws ; but it will not be in the future, as we must to-day 

 consider it, the most comprehensive principle ruling natural 

 phenomena ; it will perhaps appear as a special case of a 

 still more general relation, of the nature of which we can at 

 present have scarcely an inkling. 



I am not afraid of having lowered by what I have said 

 the value of that mental progress which we were discuss- 



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