42 



DE. LUDWIG VON GERDTELL, ON 



the mechanical course of our imaoinative associations 

 becomes more fully confirmed by the actual occur- 

 rences of the anticipated observations. 



Let us explain this more in detail. We have experienced 

 that fire is hot. First our instinct of inquiry urges us to 

 investigate the source of heat. It finds it close at hand in the 

 fire. Thereafter whenever we see a fire we are compelled by 

 the natural mechanism of our imaginative associations on the 

 ground of former experience to anticipate the sensation of 

 heat Each test confirms the correctness of our anticipation. 

 Fire is experimentally always hot ; and as this anticipation is 

 without exception strengthened by innumerable experiences, it 

 becomes by continued practice a mere matter of course, a second 

 nature. We can then no longer doubt that fire and heat are 

 inseparable, or as Kant and others have expressed it, they are 

 " necessarily " united. 



However much the majority of unschooled scoffers may 

 believe in this apparently necessary connection between cause 

 and effect, they are just as little acquainted with the funda- 

 mental principle of modern science, viz., the " absolute " validity 

 of the Law of Causation. 



The Berlin philosopher, Friedrich Paulsen, well says in his 

 Introduction to Fliilosophy. — 



" The whole of popular medicine consists of observed results : 

 whether rightly or wrongly observed ; that is, if one does this or 

 that, then one catches cold or fever. If you have fever, you must 

 sweat or be dosed, etc. Many feel no need of an explanation of 

 the relationship between the allied phenomena. Nor are they upset 

 at ail if the means do not always cure. Their Law of Causation does 

 not demand it. Its formula seems to be : This follows that 

 generally, but sometimes it turns out otherwise. Indeed this 

 formula corresponds to their demand. Practical life has always to 

 do with consequences such as are only rules with exceptions and 

 are not regardable as fixed laws : the peasant has to do with 

 weather conditions and occurrences in organic life, which are 

 variable and answer to his formula ; the labourer with materials 

 and tools which are not always of the same quality ; the teacher, the 

 official, with human constitutions which, alike in general features, 

 have all their peculiarities and follow no identical line of action." 



It is certain that the simple-minded person, that is to say, 

 the man unschooled in the spirit of modern science, knows 

 nothing of an absolutely inviolable Natural Causation. This can 

 be historically proved. We need only to call to mind the most 

 hihgly cultivated types of classical antiquity. 



