KLAPROTH AND DALTON 179 



well-founded quantitative piece of knowledge based upon 

 experience, which although it goes far beyond what is directly 

 accessible to our senses, nevertheless possesses the same cer- 

 tainty as direct observations. We are in this way as fully 

 convinced of the existence of the atoms with their weights, as 

 we are of the globular form and axial rotation of the earth, of 

 which we are likewise unable to assure ourselves by the direct 

 evidence of our senses. Starting from Dalton's beginnings, 

 we already know to-day very much more about the atoms than 

 their relationship by weight. Imagined suitably enlarged, 

 though still indefinite in certain details, they form for us to- 

 day quite as much a result of our gradually increasing know- 

 ledge, as does the earth's sphere, imagined suitably dimin- 

 ished in size as seen from a distance, with which we are 

 familiar. This was the first great example of our penetration 

 into details of the world not directly accessible to our senses, 

 and was given us by Dalton in the year 1808, in his New 

 System of Chemical Philosophy, which was based on the 

 sound investigations of his predecessors, in particular 

 Klaproth.i 



^ 'Philosophy' of to-day usually goes back to antiquity when seeking to 

 tell us the origin of our ideas of atoms. It does not notice that it is 

 merely tracing the origin of the word, and it confuses arbitrary imaginings 

 of the human mind - many of which appeared early - with ideas of the 

 external world which are strictly co-ordinated with measurable and quanti- 

 tative experience; it confuses untrammelled poetic imagining with truth 

 laboriously sought and tested. But in going back to antiquity, it might 

 have learned from Pythagoras how we are to avoid falling into such deadly 

 confusion; by measurement. But even without making invariable 

 use of this method - as the scientist does - since it cannot everywhere 

 be applied, it is possible to serve truth, that is to say to follow out the 

 actual course of events, instead of turning fancies into systems, without 

 paying any attention to their failure when confronted with reality; 

 philosophy alone no longer gives heed to this. In this way, being 

 incapable of grasping our advanced science - a matter however rendered 

 much more difficult by the materialistic method of to-day, and not by the 

 extent of our investigations - it has been condemned to an undoubtedly 

 injurious and merely apparent existence, such as it now leads at the uni- 

 versities, being mainly a terror for examination candidates, and serving to 

 superficialise their minds; and many another moral science is in no better 

 case, likewise for want of an unconditional enthusiasm for truth. 



