23 



LIMITATION AND TREATMENT 



"We are still far from the time when it will 

 be possible to concentrate all perceptions of 

 sense, into unity of conception of Nature. It 

 may even be said to be problematical whether 

 this time will ever come. The complicated 

 character of the problem, and the infinity of 

 the universe, seem almost to render vain the 

 hope that it ever will. But though the com- 

 plete solution of the problem may remain un- 

 attainable, its partial solution may still be an- 

 ticipated ; the effort, indeed, to understand the 

 phenomena of the universe is still the highest, 

 as it is the eternal goal of all natural investiga- 

 tion. Faithful to the character of my early 

 writings, as to the nature of my occupations, 

 which have still been devoted to experiments, 

 to measurements, to the minute examination 

 of facts, I limit myself in my present underta- 

 king to the empirical, or experimental method. 

 It supplies the only ground upon which I feel 

 that I can move with less of uncertainty. But 

 this treatment of an empirical science, or rather 

 of an aggregate of empirical knowledge, does 

 not preclude arrangement of the conclusions 

 come to, in harmony with leading ideas, the 

 generalization of the special, the ceaseless 

 search after empirical natural laws. 



Knowledge acquired under the guidance of 

 thought, the attainment of a rational compre- 

 hension of the universe, holds out yet a higher 

 object. I am far from blaming efforts in which 

 I have myself made no trial of my strength, 

 because their fruits still remain subject of 

 doubt. Greatly misunderstood, and much 

 against the views and the counsel of the pow- 

 erful thinkers whom these, the special matters 

 that engaged antiquity, have again attracted, 

 systems of what was called the Philosophy of 

 Nature, threatened, for a time, to lead men 

 away from the study of the mathematical and 

 physical sciences, so important in themselves, 

 so intimately connected with the material wel- 

 fare of mankind. The intoxicating delirium of 

 possession obtained by toil, a peculiarly adven- 

 turously symbolical language, a schematic dis- 

 cipline, narrower than ever the middle age of 

 humanity forced itself into, have, in the youth- 

 ful misapplication of noble powers, been the 

 features that distinguished the brilliant, but 

 short-lived Saturnalia of this purely ideal nat- 

 ural science — I repeat the expression, misap- 

 plication of powers ; for the sober spirits dedi- 

 cated at once to philosophy and to observation, 

 continued strangers to these excesses. The 

 conception of Experimental Science in general, 

 and of a Philosophy of Nature complete in all 

 its parts, if such perfection can ever be obtain- 

 ed, cannot stand in contradiction or opposition 

 to one another, if the Philosophy of Nature, 

 true to its promise, be the rational comprehen- 

 sion of the phenomena of the universe. Where 

 contradiction shows itself, the blame lies in 

 the hoUowness of the speculation, or in the 

 arrogance of empiricism, which thinks it gains 

 more from experience than experience war- 

 rants 



And here the realm of the Spiritual might 

 be opposed to the Natural ; as if the spiritual, 

 too, were not contained within the concept of 

 nature as a whole ! Or Art may be opposed 

 to Nature, by Art being implied something 

 more than the idea of the spiritual faculty of 



producing which is inherent in man. Yet these 

 opposites must not lead to such a separation of 

 the physical from the intellectual as would 

 make the physics of the universe sink down 

 into a mere heap of empirically collected indi- 

 vidualities. Science begins at the point where 

 mind dominates matter, where the attempt is 

 made to subject the mass of experience to the 

 scrutiny of reason ; science is mind brought 

 into connection with nature. The external 

 world exists to us only when we receive it into 

 our interior, when it has fashioned itself with- 

 in us into a natural perception. Mysteriously 

 indivisible, as are mind and language, as are 

 thought and the fructifying word, even so and 

 to us all consciously, does the external world 

 blend with the interior in man, with thought 

 and with emotion. "External phenomena," 

 says Hegel, in his Philosophy of History, " are 

 thus translated into internal conceptions. " The 

 external or objective world, conceived by us, 

 reflected in us, is then subjected to the eternal, 

 necessary, and all-influencing forms of our spir- 

 itual existence. Our intellectual activity then 

 exercises itself upon the material that has been 

 taken in through perceptions of sense. There 

 is, therefore, a tendency to philosophical ideas 

 even in the infancy of human society, in the 

 simplest views that can ever be taken of na- 

 ture. This impulse is various, more or less 

 lively, according to the temper of the mind, to 

 national peculiarity, and to the state of intel- 

 lectual culture among communities. The work 

 of the mind begins so soon as thought, impelled 

 by internal necessity, takes up the material of 

 sensible impressions. 



History has preserved us records of the ofl 

 and variously repeated attempt to comprehend 

 the world of physical phenomena in its multi- 

 plicity, to get at the knowledge of a peculiar 

 penetrating, moving, compounding, and decom- 

 pounding power pervading the universe. These, 

 attempts, in classical times, constituted the 

 physiologies and doctrines of the primeval mat- 

 ter of the Ionic school, in which, by the side 

 of a poorly arranged empiricism, a scanty dis- 

 play of facts, ideal efforts, or efforts to explain 

 nature upon grounds of pure reason, prevailed. 

 But the more the material of certain empirical 

 knowledge accumulated, under the influence of 

 a brilliant extension of all the natural sciences, 

 the more did the impulse cool which led men to 

 seek to comprehend the essence of phenomena, 

 and to discover their unity as a natural whole, 

 by the construction of systems prompted by 

 pure reason. In times that have but recently 

 gone by, the mathematical portion of natural 

 philosophy has had to rejoice in a great and no- 

 ble development. The methods and the instru- 

 ment (Analysis), have advanced towards per- 

 fection simultaneously. And what was eheited 

 in such a variety of ways — by a judicious appli- 

 cation of atomical premises, by a more general 

 and more immediate contact with nature, by 

 the invention and improvement of new instru- 

 ments, is now, as of old, the common inherit- 

 ance of mankind, and ought not to be lost to 

 the freest operations of philosophy, however 

 changing in her forms. Hitherto, indeed, the 

 inviolability of the material has run certain 

 risks in the process of reconstruction ; and ia 

 the ceaseless change of idealistic views, it 19 



