198 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



or energetic philosophy of Ostwald, which confessedly derives 1 * 7 from 

 the thermodynamic argument of Gibbs, but should not be confused 

 with the latter. Gibbs was concerned only with applying the laws of 

 mechanics to physical chemistiy. Compared with the case of nature, 

 he says, thermodynamic systems are " of an ideal simplicity." To 

 Ostwald, however, mind and matter are but forms of energy, which is 

 the only thing eternal and immortal. " We can deal with measurable 

 things, never with the unknown heart of nature," says Ostwald, yet his 

 basic principle, energy, is to all intents and purposes identical with 

 the eternal infinite substance of Spinoza, Goethe and Haeckel, " sive 

 Deus, sive Natura naturans, sive Anima mundi appelletur." Matter, 

 in Ostwald's scheme, is a group of energies in space; thought becomes 

 a mode of energy involving evolution of heat, and " the problem of 

 the connection between body and spirit belongs to the same series as 

 the connection between chemical and electrical energy, which is treated 

 in the theory of voltaic chains." 148 Falling in love, listening to a 

 Beethoven symphony, identifying oneself with nature, are to Ostwald 

 instances of dissipation of energy like any other. 149 Philosophy of this 

 kind does not clear up the mystery of the relation of mind and matter. 

 Descartes assumed that mind and matter exist apart as parallels, hav- 

 ing no causal connection with each other. Spinoza held that neither 

 can exist apart; indeed, he sometimes asserts their practical identity 

 as different modes of the same eternal substance. But however inti- 

 mately they may be associated, no scientist or philosopher has yet 

 proven, whether in the body of man or in the origin of the universe, 

 that one is either the cause or the effect of the other. 



Assuming matter in mass to be ultimately made up of rotational, 

 vortical or gyrostatic stresses or of energies, whether kinetic or poten- 

 tial, we encounter the formidable objection of Boltzmann, that it seems 

 illogical, not to say unmechanical, to postulate motion as the primary 

 idea with the moving thing as the derived one. Motion of what? we 

 have a right to ask, since Ostwald disdains the ether of the physicists. 150 

 Matter, in the words of Sir Oliver Lodge, may be physically resolved 



147 " Wir wollen daher den Versuch wagen, eine Weltansicht ohne die 

 Benutzung des Begriffs der Materie ausschliesslich aus energetischem Material 

 aufzubauen ... In der fur die neuere Chemie grundlegenden Abhandlung von 

 Willard Gibbs ist sogar dies Postulat praktisch in weitestem Umfange durch- 

 gefiihrt worden, allerdings ohne dass es ausdrticklich aufgestellt worden ware." 

 W. Ostwald, " Vorles. iiber Naturpbilosophie," 165. 



liS Monist, 1907. 



149 W. Ostwald, "Individuality and Immortality," 44-46. 



"o « what the atom of each element is, whether it is a movement or a thing, 

 or a vortex, or a point having inertia, all these questions are surrounded by 

 profound darkness. I dare not use any less pedantic word than entity to 

 designate the ether, for it would be an exaggeration of our knowledge to speak 

 of it as a body, or even a substance," Lord Salisbury, " Rep. Brit. Ass. Adv. 

 Sc," 1894, 8. 



