WILHELM OSTWALD
Maeterlinck expresses his idea of happiness through the symbol of the
Blue Bird. Ostwald expresses his by
_G = E² - W²_
Poets and scientists both are necessarily symbolists. The apparent
conflict between them is chiefly a difference of taste as to the
choice of symbols, for both stand together in opposition to the great
mass of near-sighted humanity, those who live only in the concrete,
too absorbed in the consideration of particulars to discover for
themselves the One in the Many. The most conspicuous difference between
the symbolism of poetry and that of science is that the former is old
and the latter new. The poet prefers to go to antiquity for symbols,
bringing down from the attic to the living-room some metaphorical
heirloom, enriched by the associations of generations and carrying
with it a penumbra of indefinable suggestions, which makes it appear
to mean more than it does. So Maeterlinck chooses for his fairy play
"The Blue Bird", which had lived in folk lore for countless ages. But
the scientist prefers to invent a new symbol for the occasion in order
to get something that shall convey neither more nor less meaning than
what he himself puts into it at the time. Poets and artists of all
sorts get credit for greater perspicacity and prophetic power than they
deserve, by reason of later generations reading into their sayings much
more meaning than was ever in the mind of the author. This unearned
increment of reputation, compounded annually, is all that keeps some
ancient authors alive nowadays. But the man of science disdains such
support and is careful to define his terms so that posterity may give
him no more credit than he thinks he has earned by his own exertions.
The scientific symbolism is not only more exact than the poetic,
but it is also more practical. Doubtless "The Blue Bird" of Maurice
Maeterlinck and "The Blue Flower" of Henry Van Dyke have contributed
to happiness as well as stood for it, but they are not of much service
in showing which of two courses in any dilemma will lead to it. The
unpoetical reader might suppose that to be blue was to be happy.
Ostwald, however, insists that his formula is not a mere mathematical
jest, but applicable to practical affairs, and like a true physician he
has tried it on himself and knows that it works. He tells us that he
solved one of the most difficult problems of his life by its aid, as,
for example, when at the age of fifty-three the question arose whether
he should remain professor of chemistry in Leipzig University or retire
to his country place at Gross-Bothen to take up the new profession of
"practical idealist"?
An interpretation of Ostwald's formula for happiness,
_G = E² - W²_
will enable the reader to try it for himself. _G_ stands for happiness
(_Glück_). This, according to the theory of energetics, is dependent
upon the amount of energy expended, might in fact be measured by
the amount of carbon dioxid produced by conscious activity if we
could separate this from the unconscious physiological processes of
the body. Part of this Energy is expended in agreeable ways; let
that be represented by _E_. But there is always another part of
conscious activity which is unpleasant, such as painful feelings,
disagreeable thoughts, unwilling duties; that may be represented by _W_
(_widerwillig_).
The second term (_E²--W²_) of the equation may be resolved into the
two factors _E_ + _W_ and _E - W_, and increase of either will tend
to increase the amount of happiness. The way of the strenuous life is
to increase the first (_E_ + _W_), the total expenditure of energy;
that is, to exert one's self to the utmost in desired directions,
even though opposition and anxieties increase also; to bring up the
health to its highest point that the supply of chemical energy may
not fail; to cut down as much as possible on sleep, for that is the
time when both _E_ and _W_ sink to zero. This is what Ostwald calls
Hero-happiness (_Heldenglück_).
But men of more timid temperament prefer to devote their attention
to the other factor (_E_ - _W_), because herein lies the danger, not
merely of no happiness (when _G_ = 0), but of unhappiness, for _G_
becomes a minus quantity when _W_ is greater than _E_. They strive
rather to reduce _W_, the unpleasant part of life, than to increase
_E_, the pleasant. To avoid risks, to curb ambition, to limit
desires, to curtail expenditure, to seek contentment rather than
delight--this is the way of the simple life and leads to Hut-happiness
(_Hüttenglück_). This may indeed attain the same result, give an equal
value for G, but the happiness so reached is very different in kind,
though equivalent in degree, to that for which strive men of the
type of Napoleon, Edison, and Roosevelt. The search for happiness by
limitation instead of expansion leads at its extreme to stoicism, to
asceticism, to nirvana, to the state of mind of Diogenes, who threw
away his sole utensil, the cup, when he saw a man drink out of his hand.
Many moralists before Ostwald have attempted to put this idea into
semi-mathematical form, generally with the object of advising the
seeker after happiness to take the lower and smoother road. Carlyle
says in "Sartor Resartus":
"The Fraction of Life can be increased in value, not so much by
increasing your Numerator as by lessening your Denominator. Nay, unless
my Algebra deceive me, Unity itself divided by Zero will give Infinity.
Make thy claim of wages a zero, then; thou hast the world at thy feet.
Well did the Wisest of our time write 'It is only with Renunciation
that Life, properly speaking, can be said to begin.'" James, in
his "Principles of Psychology", expresses it as follows:
Success
Self-esteem = -----------
Pretensions.
That is, our self-esteem is determined by the ratio of our actualities
to our supposed potentialities. And he suggests that some Bostonians
"would be happier men and women to-day if they could once for all
abandon the notion of keeping up a Musical Self and without shame let
people hear them call a symphony a nuisance"?
[Illustration: Wilhelm Ostwald]
William Winter puts the thought in rhyme:
"I have set my heart on nothing, you see
And so the world goes well with me."
One is irresistibly impelled to quote Johnson's remark:
"Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant
and a philosopher may be equally _satisfied_, but not equally _happy_.
Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A
peasant has not capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher."
Boswell tags this in his usual style with the observation that this
very question was "very happily illustrated" by the Reverend Mr. Robert
Brown at Utrecht, who said that "a small drinking glass and a very
large one may be equally full, but the large one holds more than the
small."
Ostwald applies his formula to James's "Varieties of Religious
Experience", and shows that the convert leaves the mourner's bench at
the moment when the factor (_E_ - _W_) changes its sign from minus
to plus. (Here _W_ apparently stands for the devil.) The equation
also serves him as an argument against the use of alcohol and other
narcotics, which, though they temporarily reduce _W_ by sinking all
unpleasantnesses below the threshold of consciousness, are likely to
make happiness a minus quantity. Wealth, being the most compact and
convenient form of energy, may serve to increase _E_ or diminish _W_,
but not in proportion to its amount. Dramatic criticism may even be
made mathematical. Jaques has a large _W_; Rosalind has a large _E_;
put them together and you have "As You Like It."
But I should not devote so much space to what is merely an extreme and,
some would say, an extravagant application of Ostwald's philosophy.[1]
It is, however, a characteristic example of his mode of thought and may
serve as well as any other to introduce the reader to his fundamental
theory of energetics, which formed the leading principle of his
chemical work, and which he has now carried over into the fields of
philosophy and sociology.
It is not necessary to explain the modern conception of energy, for we
all learned about it in our school days, and here we need only have in
mind its two fundamental laws. The first is the law of the conservation
of energy, discovered by Mayer, which states that the amount of energy
remains unchanged whatever its transformations. To take a familiar
example, when we buy coal, we are really buying chemical energy, not
carbon. When we burn it, we let the carbon go off up the chimney, but
the heat energy we keep as completely as possible, and by means of
a boiler transform it into the expansive energy of steam, which is
converted into the motion energy of piston rod and wheel, and when
connected with a dynamo may become electrical energy. The electrical
energy we can conduct by a wire into our homes and there convert it
into the light energy of an incandescent bulb, the heat energy of an
electric griddle, or the motion energy of a fan or carpet sweeper. That
is, whenever any kind of energy disappears, some other kind of energy
crops up somewhere in exactly equivalent amount. In any experiment
where they can be measured, the income and outgo of energy will be
found to balance exactly, just like a bookkeeper's ledger.
But here is another thing to consider. The fact that a trial balance
comes out even does not prove that the concern is not losing money,
and we see the same thing in the energy business. In the series of
transformations we have followed above, from the coal of the power
house to the utensils of the household, there is leakage all along
the line, a little lost in friction and radiated heat in each of the
machines, and a big waste, some eighty-five per cent, in the steam
engine. Ostwald uses the ingenious illustration of a traveler who goes
through Europe changing his money at every frontier, and losing a
little each time through the changer's discount. A good money changer
is one who is satisfied with a moderate commission. A good machine is
one that gives back to us almost as much as we give it. But there is
none perfect, no, not one.
This is the second fundamental law of thermodynamics,[2] the law of
the degradation of energy. For energy has a sort of gravitation of its
own. It always wants to run down hill. Heat seeks its level as well
as water. If we lay a hot plate, say, a temperature of 100°, on or
under a plate at zero, the heat will spread to the cold plate until
both are at 50°, disregarding radiation losses. And when they have
come to the same temperature, it is impossible to get out of them any
further heat movement. "You cannot run the mill with the water that's
gone by." You have to have a fall of temperature to run any kind of
heat engine. Every machine, every chemical and physical process, every
living being, is leaking energy all the time, that is, transforming
it into unavailable forms. That is the way we get our living. The sun
is dissipating its heat energy throughout space at a great rate. Our
allies, the plants, manage to catch a tiny bit of it and store it in
starch and oil, but we eat these and send the energy on its way as heat
again. The whole universe, regarded as a big machine, is running down
like a clock and, it seems, must ultimately come to a stop, unless,
indeed, there is a self-winding attachment hidden away in it somewhere,
or somebody outside of it all to wind it up occasionally.
This, however, is one of those questions which Ostwald calls
"pseudo-problems" and from which he would free us by applying the
energetic philosophy. His test is the following: "Suppose the problem
solved and assume any one of all possible answers to be correct, we
can then investigate what effect this would have on our conduct.
If it produces no effect, the problem is thereby indicated to be a
pseudo-problem." He takes for example the following:
Did the world have a beginning in time or has it existed
from all eternity? By the way of experiment we will assume
that it has existed since eternity, and will ask what would
change in our conduct by this knowledge? I find, at least
for myself, that nothing would change by this knowledge, and
just as little if we assume that there was a beginning in
time. Hence I must say that even if I positively learn in
some way which of the two possibilities is correct, it would
be a matter of perfect indifference to me, and this being
the case, we have here a pseudo-problem. The significance of
this procedure is apparent from the answer to the question
as to what we call "correct" or "true." The answer was that
which enables us to make accurate predictions. Something
that does not allow us to make any prediction whatever is
essentially of no interest to us in any way, and there is
no need of being concerned about it.--"The Modern Theory of
Energetics" (_Monist_, 1907).
This, of course, is the pragmatic method, and Ostwald acknowledges the
relationship by observing: "Energetics coincides with that movement
which has originated on philosophical ground and which pursues very
similar ends under the name of pragmatism or humanism." The pragmatic
mode of thinking is practically universal among scientific men, but
Ostwald is an extreme pragmatist. Prophecy is the sole aim of science,
according to him, and he virtually denies the possibility of applying
the terms truth and falsehood, in the strict sense, to the statements
of history.[3]
To catch what we can of this stream of energy and to utilize it to
the best advantage, is the aim of human endeavor, the measure of
civilization. This is the function of the will in the individual and
the duty of the leaders of men. Wealth in all ages consists essentially
of the command of energy, whether counted by slave power, horse power,
or kilowatt hours. In order to show how Ostwald's sociology grows out
of his physics, let me quote the concluding paragraphs of his little
book on "Natural Philosophy":
The objective characteristic of progress consists in
improved methods for seizing and utilizing the raw energies
of nature for human purposes. Thus it was a cultural act
when a primitive man discovered that he could extend
the radius of his muscle energy by taking a pole in his
hand, and it was another cultural act when a primitive
man discovered that by throwing a stone he could send his
muscle energy a distance of many meters to the desired
point. The effect of the knife, the spear, the arrow, and
of all the other primitive implements can be called in.
each case a purposive transformation of energy. And at the
other end of the scale of civilization the most abstract
scientific discovery, by reason of its generalization and
simplification, signifies a corresponding economy of energy
for all the coming generations that may have anything to do
with the matter. Thus, in fact, the concept of progress as
here defined embraces the entire sweep of human endeavor for
perfection, or the entire field of culture, and at the same
time it shows the great scientific value of the concept of
energy.
If we consider further that, according to the second
fundamental principle, the free energy accessible to us can
only decrease, but not increase, while the number of men
whose existence depends directly on the consumption of a due
amount of free energy is constantly on the increase, then
we at once see the objective necessity of the development
of civilization in that sense. His foresight puts man in a
position to act culturally. But if we examine our present
social order from this point of view, we realize with horror
how barbarous it still is. Not only do murder and war
destroy cultural values without substituting others in their
place, not only do the countless conflicts which take place
between the different nations and political organizations
act anticulturally, but so do also the conflicts between
the various social classes of one nation, for they destroy
quantities of free energy which are thus withdrawn from
the total of real cultural values. At present mankind is
in a state of development in which progress depends much
less upon the leadership of a few distinguished individuals
than upon the collective labor of all workers. Proof of
this is that it is coming to be more and more the fact
that great scientific discoveries are made simultaneously
by a number of independent investigators--an indication
that society creates in several places the individual
conditions requisite for such discoveries. Thus we are
living at a time when men are gradually approximating one
another very closely in their natures, and when the social
organization therefore demands and strives for as thorough
an equalization as possible in the conditions of existence
of all men.
From the same fundamental conception Ostwald derives his system of
ethics, which he sums up in "the energetic imperative":[4] _So act
that the crude energy is transformed into the higher with the least
possible loss_. This forms the text of several of his lay sermons such
as the one on "Efficiency."[5] Efficiency, that is, the ratio of work
to means, of accomplishment to opportunity, can be made the measure
of a man as well as of a machine, since Ostwald includes all thoughts
and feelings as forms of energy. This scientific conception and ideal
of efficiency, developed in the laboratory, was first introduced into
the shop, thence it has crept into business management, and has even
made its unwelcome appearance in university administration. It cannot
be much longer kept out from the capitol, the church, and the home. It
is, in fact, the contribution to our civilization by the fourth and
newest of the learned professions, that of the engineer. He it is who
has started us all wondering how much of what we daily do pays us in
any coin, has made us anxious to see some relation between effort and
result, has rendered us impatient of unnecessary delay, friction, lost
motion, wasted work, unutilized material, and retarded rewards.
To distinguish low and high forms of energy, says Ostwald, we should
consider their relative importance for human purposes. Thus bread must
be regarded as containing a higher form of chemical energy than wood,
although they are very similar in chemical composition and produce
about the same number of calories of heat on consumption.
Kant's categorical imperative, "So act that your conduct may be taken
as a universal law", is, in Ostwald's opinion, neither so comprehensive
nor so definite as his energetic imperative, which includes ethical
conduct, but is not confined to it. We call one automobile "good" and
another "bad" if the former will carry us twice as far as the latter on
the same amount of gasoline consumed. A "good" friend is one who helps
us in our endeavors through judicious advice and without annoyance,
while a "poor" friend only multiplies our difficulties; here again
goodness and badness are determined by the ratio of the total energy
employed and the results obtained. It is this second principle of
thermodynamics, the law of the degradation and dissipation of energy,
that prevents us from undoing the past, that gives significance to
such phrases as "time flies" and "the world moves." The cosmic process
is not a reversible reaction. Nietzsche's nightmare of the eternal
recurrence, which drove him insane, would have been dispelled by a
knowledge of elementary physics.
The second law is therefore of greater importance to philosophy and
sociology than the first, the law of the conservation and transmutation
of energy. Ostwald's recognition of its significance gives to his
philosophy a character decidedly different from the view dominant
in the last century, the mechanistic theory of the universe. It is
a curious thing that Haeckel, the biologist, has, by basing his
philosophy on the first law, been led to extreme mechanistic views,
while Ostwald, the physical chemist, by placing greater emphasis
upon the second law, comes to conclusions much better suited to the
explanation of vital phenomena.
According to the old mechanistic theory, the world could be reduced
to two elements, matter and motion. Everything was held to consist in
reality of atoms, in those days generally assumed to be indivisible and
eternal. Each atom was at a given instant moving in a certain direction
at a certain speed. It followed from this, as was suggested in the
_Philosophical Magazine_ many years ago, that if each atom should be
suddenly stopped and sent going back on its track with the same speed,
all events would be reversed and history be repeated backward. If we
were watching Waterloo, for example,[6] we should see the dead men rise
up one by one, pick up their guns, point them at their enemies, receive
into the gunbarrels the gases produced by the explosion of powder, and
walk off backward. Napoleon starting as a prisoner on St. Helena would
end as Emperor of the French.
We have all of us had this idea pictorially presented to us in moving
picture shows when the film is run through the lantern backward and
we see apples leaping from the ground and attaching themselves to the
limbs of the tree, and swimmers diving up out of the water and lighting
on the springboard. In fact, the reversed film of the cinematograph
may be regarded as the _reductio ad absurdum_ of the mechanistic
hypothesis. We might expect that a piece of music would sound just as
well if we put the perforated paper roll into the player piano wrong
end first--but somehow it doesn't. We all feel instinctively that there
is something ridiculous and impossible about this idea of reversibility
when applied to human beings. Even the chemist and the physicist can
effect this reversibility only to a limited extent and in special
cases, as, for example, when energy is supplied from some external
source. A sled can indeed be made to go up hill as well as down, but
it is hard work to make it. Wood will burn easily, but no chemist is
yet able to get the wood back out of the gases of combustion. The
second energy law was taught to us in our infancy by the parable of
Humpty-Dumpty.
Bergson bases his theory of the comic[7] upon the idea that the
absurdest of all things is to regard a human being as a machine. That
the world is, like man, not rightly to be regarded as a machine is
the fundamental theme of Bergson's "Creative Evolution", so there is
a striking similarity in point of view between Ostwald and Bergson,
notwithstanding their diversity of temperament and style. It may be
recalled that Bergson also entered into the realm of metaphysics
through the door of mathematical physics.
As early as 1895 Ostwald announced "the overthrow of scientific
materialism";[8] a startling declaration coming from one of the
greatest of chemists at a time when chemistry was almost exclusively
absorbed in the transformations of matter and only beginning to
recognize the importance of the concomitant transformations of energy.
When the chemist had put upon the blackboard the equation of a reaction
or the structural formula of a compound, he was apt to think that he
had told "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" about
it. Against all such crude conceptions Ostwald protested vigorously,
preaching a new iconoclasm in the words of the old: "Thou shalt not
make unto thee any image or any likeness of anything that is in the
heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the
water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor
serve them." He demanded "a science free from hypotheses"; formulas
that should merely state what is known to take place, in the place of
mechanical models and misleading visualizations. "Matter", said this
professor of the most materialistic of the sciences, "is merely a
form of thought", which is the same conclusion that Kant had come to
a hundred years before in regard to time and space. But whereas Kant
had said: "Give me matter and I will build a world out of it", Ostwald
would say: "Away with matter, I will build a world without it."
"The Actual, that is, what acts upon us, is energy alone", but in so
speaking Ostwald must not be understood, as he often is, to imply that
energy is the sole substance of which the world is composed. Mass
is merely one of the two factors which make up the product known as
energy. What the common man regards as the attributes of matter, its
hardness, heaviness, color, etc., are simply the effects of various
forms of energy on his sense organs.
Coal should be sold by calories, not tons. Even the courts, slowest
of human institutions to take cognizance of new ideas, have come to
the conclusion that energy is an entity, for now they will convict a
man for stealing it from a third rail, though perhaps they regard the
current as a stream of corpuscles. The unifying value of the energy
conception appears when we consider the old riddle of the relation of
the mind and body. Between the brain, regarded merely as a collocation
of moving molecules, and the mind, regarded merely as a succession
of states of consciousness, there is no conceivable connection, and
dualism is inevitable. But if we regard both as forms of energy, the
difficulty disappears. The "preëstablished harmony" of Leibnitz then
becomes the established unity of Ostwald. The idea of energy had its
inception in human action, so it is not an alien form of thought. It
was borrowed originally from psychology by physics, and there is no
impropriety in taking it back.
What we have been calling explanations in physics, and even in
psychology, have been for the most part merely mechanical analogies.
We have felt that a phenomenon was "explained" when we could make a
working model that we could see and handle. A few years ago physicists
were explaining electricity by cumbrous mechanisms of cogwheels and
water pipes. In recent textbooks this is reversed, and mechanical
phenomena are explained by the use of conceptions developed in the
study of electricity, such as "potential", "field", and "capacity".
The establishment in 1901 of the _Annalen der Naturphilosophie_,
by Wilhelm Ostwald, marked the change in the attitude of prominent
scientists toward the problems of speculative philosophy. The pendulum
was on its swing back from the extreme and intolerant empiricism which
has been the prevailing trait of scientific workers for so long.
In its revulsion from the imaginative metaphysics of the ancients and
the formal logic of the schoolmen, modern science resolutely turned
away from ambitious attempts to solve the riddle of the universe by
brilliant guessing and began the patient accumulation and verification
of facts and the deduction from them of their simplest and most certain
inferences. This task came to be considered as the sole sphere of
scientific thought; and there were men who were daring and foolish
enough to teach that this was the only method for the advancement of
human knowledge. Happily, however, for civilization, scientists did not
confine themselves to the method prescribed for them by Bacon and other
literary men, and of late years it has become generally recognized
that the greatest achievements have been made in quite the opposite
way--that is, by projecting the imagination into the unknown and then
working up to it. Almost all the best scientific work has been done
under the guidance of hypotheses; and purely accidental discoveries
have been rare and usually insignificant. In fact, in many branches of
science the word invention should be used rather than discovery. The
new compound or the new plant exists clearly in the mind's eye of the
chemist or the horticulturist before he sets out to produce it.
It was not to be expected that men who had already accomplished more
in science in a century than had been done in all preceding time would
forever keep their trained imaginations from attacking the deepest
problems of life and destiny; and it is no wonder that we find some of
our greatest scientists turning their attention toward metaphysics and
epistemology. The transfer of Professor Mach from the chair of physics
to that of the theory of inductive sciences was symbolic of a mental
change which was taking place in many minds.
The removal of the ban against speculative philosophy has obviously
its dangers, but they are less than have been attached to this form of
thought in the past. That mankind should again go back to the sports of
its youth and blow soap bubbles merely to watch in them the iridescent
but distorted views of the world would be a sad calamity; but it is
not probable that the lesson of a century and a half of patient work
will be wholly lost. The dreamer of the future will not dare to build
an air castle without at least an option on the site. The danger is
not from men of science like Ostwald, Mach, and Poincaré, who are so
well ballasted that they can carry more sail than ordinary men, but
from those who are less qualified and less cautious. We have never,
however, been free from the fancies of this latter class. Nature abhors
a vacuum; and if any field of intellect is left empty by the wise but
overwary, it will speedily be filled by those who have no fears where
they tread. The recrudescence of antiquated superstitions and the rise
of freak religions are the natural result of confining scientific
thought and criticism to the material and practical. Even the plodding
compilator of facts has his metaphysical theories, although he would
indignantly deny that anything of the kind could be found about his
person. Metaphysics may be ignored, but not dispensed with. In the
so-called "common sense" point of view, speculative hypotheses are not
excluded, but are unconsciously and uncritically accepted.
Science has evidently been looking on the ground only to be sure of
her footing, and now is ready to assert her right to gaze even into
the deepest darknesses. No Baconian creed will in the future limit
the operations of the intellect. We have no right to call any problem
insoluble merely because it has remained unsolved. It may be that as
great triumphs will reward the scientific method here as in humbler
lines.
In the revolution which has within the last twenty years transformed
chemistry from an empirical science based upon material conceptions to
a mathematical science based upon energetic conceptions, Ostwald has
been a leader. Qualitative and quantitative analysis which had been
hardly more systematic and rational than a kitchen recipe book became
in his hands a new and delightful study in which even the beginner
could use his mind as well as his fingers. Professors of chemistry who
had got along happily all their lives with a knowledge of arithmetic as
far as and including percentage suddenly found themselves in need of
calculus and other things of that sort. Yale graduates who went to the
Leipzig laboratory in the nineties to continue their chemistry were set
to study the works of Willard Gibbs, whose name they may indeed have
seen in the catalogue of their alma mater, but whose acquaintance they
were not likely to have made. What was worse, they had to get up their
Gibbs in German,[9] since the original papers in the "Transactions of
the Connecticut Academy" were not available, and even in English Gibbs
is not light reading. It was Ostwald who first recognized Gibbs as "the
greatest scientific genius that the United States has so far produced",
and made his work known to Europe, where it has served as the guide and
inspiration of some of the most fruitful investigations of the last two
decades.
This is eminently characteristic of Ostwald. His own researches, great
as they are, may without injustice be regarded as of less importance
than the unique service he has rendered to his science by the discovery
and prompt utilization of original theories and generalizations,
whether found in the forgotten files of the journals and transactions,
in the papers of his contemporaries or the work of his students. This
was a task requiring both genius and generosity. What he did for Gibbs,
the American, he did for van't Hoff, the Dutchman, and Arrhenius, the
Swede, and many others, living and dead. He has always taken a keen
interest in individuals. He is not content with the mere name of a
great authority in a footnote. He wants to know what manner of man he
was and in what words he first made public his discovery. This led him
to cultivate the neglected field of chemical history and biography.
Most chemists knew nothing at first hand of the work of the men they
glibly referred to in their lectures, Avogadro, Bunsen, Dalton,
Berzelius, etc. Nor could they have easily become acquainted with them
if they had cared to, for the original papers were often inaccessible.
So Ostwald started in 1889 his series of "The Classics of the Exact
Sciences", reprinting important papers with notes.
In 1887, when few people knew that there was such a thing as physical
chemistry, he founded a journal for it, the _Zeitschrift für
physikalische Chemie_, now in its eighty-first volume, and not room
enough yet in its two thousand three hundred pages a year to record
the progress of the science. In 1902, when most scientists scoffed at
the idea of philosophy, he started another venture equally bold, the
_Annalen der Naturphilosophie_. During this period of sixteen years
his literary output, not counting the two periodicals and the eighteen
volumes of the "Classics of the Exact Sciences", already mentioned,
included twenty-two books of 15,850 pages altogether; 120 papers
making original contributions to chemical science comprising 1630
pages; addresses and dissertations amounting to 300 pages; and some
3880 abstracts and 920 book reviews in his journals. Every chemical
library has upon its shelves (the plural is usually necessary) "the
big Ostwald," the "Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Chemie", the size of a
cyclopedia, with the dates of its volumes strung along through the
eighties and nineties, though "the little Ostwald", the "Grundriss der
allgemeinen Chemie", shows more wear on the binding. And all that, it
must be remembered, represents only one side of the activity of this
extraordinary man, for during the period of this enormous literary
production he was professor of chemistry at the University of Leipzig
and director of one of the busiest research laboratories in the world.
We find in our American universities nowadays many men who are so
absorbed in their investigations that they refuse to consider either
the philosophical or the practical aspects of their science, and they
resent as an insult any demands made upon their time by the outside
world. Ostwald has never been so busy as that. Notwithstanding the fact
that he has carried on researches in pure science which have obtained
for him the Nobel prize, he has not disdained to print letters to
painters on the use of pigments and to lecture to housewives on the
chemistry of cooking, as well as to bring his knowledge of science to
bear upon the educational, social, and religious questions discussed in
the periodicals of the day.
When we inquire why no American chemist has yet been honored by a
Nobel medal, we are apt to be told that laboratory facilities in this
country are too inadequate. Ostwald has never been hindered by this
obstacle; not in Riga, where he was his own mechanic and glass blower,
equipping the laboratory with home-made burettes, induction coils, and
galvanometers; not in Leipzig, where he worked under conditions that
have been described as follows:[10]
"The Leipzig laboratory, in which he worked until 1897, was situated
in the Landwirtschaftliche Institut, an old pile originally devoted to
agricultural chemistry, and in every way unfitted for the carrying on
of those delicate experiments which brought Ostwald to the forefront
of scientific workers. Research was carried on under countless
difficulties; the light was bad, the rooms unventilated, the heating
effected by means of stoves difficult to regulate and producing dust
which caused much injury to the finer instruments; no precautions
had been taken in laying the foundations to insure the deadening of
vibrations; thus many experiments were ruined; the lack of space
precluded the use of telescopes for reading scales, and altogether it
would have been difficult to construct a laboratory worse adapted for
physico-chemical investigations."
In one respect, it must be said, the current of scientific thought has
gone quite counter to Ostwald's views. The atomic theory, which he was
desirous of doing away with, has become substantiated and extended.
The kinetic theory of gases has not been displaced by his concept of
"volume-energy", and now the motion of the molecules has been made
visible by the ultra-microscope, and we hear talk of the "atomic
theory of electricity", the "corpuscular conception of light", and the
"granular nature of energy." Even time and space show a tendency to
disintegrate and become discrete. But the tide may turn at any moment,
and Ostwald's conceptions once more become fashionable in scientific
circles.
As I say, Ostwald does not appear to be a busy man. Would a busy man
take the heart out of a fair summer day to devote himself to the
entertainment of a wandering American journalist? If I had not known
that he was an editor of two periodicals and a leader in some of the
most important movements of the day, I might have supposed him a mere
gentleman of leisure, as he sat with me on the porch of his country
home, willing to talk freely on any topic I suggested, willing even to
listen when I wanted to talk, with never a longing look through his
study door at the heavily laden desk and silent typewriter. A big man,
as well as a great man, is Ostwald; genial in manner, direct of speech.
His bushy blond beard has mostly lost the color it had when first I saw
him in 1904 at the St. Louis Congress of Arts and Sciences, and his
hair is quite white and now cut short, bristling an inch or two all
over his head. He would be recognized as a German professor by his look
and bearing, if he were seen anywhere on the globe, yet he could not
be called a type specimen, for he is free from the vices to which the
average German professor is most addicted, the love of beer, tobacco,
and Latin. Also, he hates dueling, although recognizing that it is not
so dangerous as American football.[11]
But unconventional as his views may appear, it must not be thought that
Ostwald is a faddist. His is a reasoned radicalism, originating not in
mere neophilism or iconoclasm, but in the application of scientific
principles to the problems of daily life. What distinguishes Ostwald
from most other philosophers is his willingness to put his principles
to the test of experience by striving to live up to them.
Our conversation was in English necessarily, for though I had taken
my first German lessons from Ostwald over twenty years before--using
his "Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Chemie" as a primer, instead of Grimm's
"Märchen"--he had not been at hand to teach me to speak it. Ostwald,
however, speaks English as readily as he does German--or French or
Ido. His biographer relates that, when he was learning English in the
Riga _Gymnasium_ he had great difficulty in pronouncing "the", until
he discovered that he could get the sound by filling his mouth with
_Zwieback_; on the same principle, I suppose, as Demosthenes used
pebbles. Now, however, he manages his _th's_ perfectly, and I don't
think he had _Zwieback_ in his mouth when he talked with me.
His language was particularly fluent and forcible when he came to
discuss the question of teaching languages. The chief point in his
indictment of the German _Gymnasium_, or secondary school, is the
excessive time and excessive honor given to linguistics. He regards
the new scientific school (_Realschule_) as almost as bad as the
classical _Gymnasium_ in this respect, for modern languages are there
taught in much the same way as the ancient. The absorption of the
student's attention during the impressionable years of his youth in
the idiosyncrasies of German grammar, or the monstrosities of English
spelling, does not cultivate, but actually impairs, the power of
logical and original thinking. Ostwald ascribes Nietzsche's perverted
ideas, his misconception of the struggle for existence and his hatred
of the common people, to his training in classical philology. He brings
forward as a cause of the failure of Austria-Hungary to produce its
proportional share of great men, the linguistic struggle which absorbs
the energy of its people. The barrier of local language is one of
the causes of international friction and lost motion which grieves
the mind of a physicist. As a means of overcoming this friction--a
linguistic lubricating oil, as it were--he favors the formation of
an international auxiliary language, especially for scientific and
commercial purposes.[12] I suppose one reason why he thinks it possible
to construct an artificial world language is because he has seen it
done. The rapid expansion of the science of organic chemistry within
the present generation has necessitated the invention, as the need for
them arose, of more new words than Shakespeare's vocabulary contained.
Some of these are cumbrous, it is true, rather formulas than words,
but remarkable for their succinct significance and are largely common
to all languages. Ostwald has recently constructed a complete new
nomenclature of chemistry in Ido and proposes soon to use it for all
the abstracts in his _Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie_, so that
the student, after a few hours spent in learning Ido, will have free
access to all the literature of this science. Professor Ostwald assured
me that he had tried putting his philosophy into the new language
and found it of great benefit in giving clarity and definiteness to
his thought. The adoption of an international language he regards as
an important part of the peace movement in which he is now actively
engaged. I asked him if he expected that arbitration treaties would put
an end to war, and he explained that they would act like a block signal
system on a railroad, not always preventing the disaster of war, but
lessening the chances of it.
Ido is a simplified form of Esperanto, originating in the refusal of
Dr. Zamenhof to allow any reforms in the language he had invented.
It drops the accented letters and accusative form of Esperanto and
utilizes a larger proportion of romance roots common to all European
languages. The official organs are _Progreso_ (Paris: 3 Rue le Gof) and
_The International Language_ (London: 32 Cleveland Square). Ostwald's
new chemical nomenclature began in the May, 1910, number of _Progreso_.
The volume by Ostwald, Jespersen, and three other professors entitled
"International Language and Science" (London: Constable, 1910),
contains an interesting test of the capabilities of the new language,
the translation into Ido and back again into English by another person
of a page of James's psychology with almost no loss in the process. A
page of "Das Monistische Jahrhundert" appears each week in Ido.
In order to give effect to practical measures for breaking down
the barriers between nations, he has established "An International
Institute for the Organization of Intellectual Labor" known as _Die
Brücke_, "The Bridge", or, as he would prefer to put it in Ido, _La
Ponto_. This aims to serve the purpose of a world clearing house of
information and a channel of intercourse for all forms of culture. A
plan for a uniform system of page sizes for books and periodicals, "the
hypotenuse oblong", has been here brought forward and is discussed in
_Printing Art_, April and May, 1911, July, 1912.
So Ostwald, having won the Nobel chemistry prize in 1909, is in a fair
way to become in time eligible for the Nobel peace prize. It is in
fact characteristic of the man that, having achieved success in one
field of human endeavor, he should turn his attention to another. It
is part of his theory of the art of life. I was curious to know why he
had left Leipzig and chemistry for Gross-Bothen and philosophy, had
abandoned one of the greatest of universities and the most popular of
the sciences for the Saxon village and a field of thought reputed as
unproductive. He explained to me that in early years he had a leaning
toward philosophy, but in those days the subject was looked upon with
disfavor. Now things have changed. People realize that it is necessary
to take a wide as well as a close view. Civilization advances by
alternating periods of specialization and generalization. We are now
entering upon the second phase.
Then, too, he had come to the conclusion from his study of great
scientists that the men who had accomplished most through the
prolongation of their productive period had done so by changing their
occupation two or three times in the course of their lifetime; for
example, Helmholtz, who devoted the first half of his adult life to
physiology and medicine and the last to physics, being equally eminent
in each; and Humboldt, who kept up his work to the close of his ninety
years by shifting from one field of science to another. Having come to
this conclusion, Ostwald, as an experimental scientist, was obliged
to try it upon himself. The success of the experiment indicates that
rotation of crops is a good plan in menticulture as well as agriculture.
He carries out the same principle in his daily life. When tired with
philosophizing, he turns to painting. This he finds relieves the mind
better than anything else, for it sends the blood to another side of
the brain, while if he tries to secure rest by lying down, the brain
goes on working in the same old lines. This absorption in artistic
effort he has used in his Harvard lecture on "Individuality and
Immortality", when he is arguing that the highest happiness is found
rather in the obliteration of individuality than its persistence.
This conclusion is familiar to us as that of the mystics, but Ostwald
reaches it characteristically by another way, the second law of
energetics. After speaking of the tendency of liquids and of heat
toward diffusion and consequent loss of identity, he applies the
principle to society and psychology. The passage is worth quoting
because it is practically a direct contradiction of Spencer's
fundamental theory that evolution is a progress from homogeneity
to heterogeneity, both for matter and for energy. The difference
results, I think, chiefly from the fact that Spencer's attention was
fixed upon the first law, that of the conservation of energy, for the
importance of the second law, that of the dissipation of energy, was
not recognized till long afterward.[13] The reader will notice that the
second law is decidedly democratic in its implications.
It is a strange thing indeed that by merely being associated
with another thing of the same kind identity is lost. And
still more strange is the fact that every being of this
kind seems driven by an irresistible impulse to seek every
occasion for losing its identity. Every known physical fact
leads to the conclusion that diffusion, or a homogeneous
distribution, of energy is the general aim of all
happenings. No change whatever seems to have occurred, and
probably none ever will occur, resulting in a concentration
greater than the corresponding dissipation of energy. A
partial concentration may be brought about in a system, but
only at the expense of a greater dissipation, and the sum
total is always an increase in dissipation.
While we are as sure as science can make us about the
general validity of this law as applied to the physical
world, its application to human development may be doubted.
It seems to me to hold good in this case also, if it is
applied with proper caution. The difficulty lies in the
circumstance that we have no exact objective means of
measuring homogeneity and heterogeneity in human affairs,
and we can therefore not study any given system closely
enough to draw a quantitative conclusion. It seems pretty
certain that increase of culture tends to diminish the
differences between men. It equalizes not only the general
standard of living, but attenuates also even the natural
differences of sex and age. From this point of view I should
look upon the accumulation of enormous wealth in the hands
of a single man as indicating an imperfect state of culture.
The property which has been described as an irresistible
tendency toward diffusion may also be observed in certain
cases in man. In conscious beings such natural tendencies
are accompanied by a certain feeling which we call will, and
we are happy when we are allowed to act according to these
tendencies or according to our will. Now, if we recall the
happiest moments of our lives, they will be found in every
case to be connected with a curious loss of personality. In
the happiness of love this fact will be at once discovered.
And if you are enjoying intensely a work of art, a symphony
of Beethoven's, for example, you find yourself relieved of
the burden of personality and carried away by the stream of
music as a drop is carried by a wave. The same feeling comes
with the grand impressions nature gives us. Even when I am
sitting quietly sketching in the open there comes to me in a
happy moment a sweet feeling of being united with the nature
about me, which is distinctly characterized by complete
forgetfulness of my poor self. We may conclude from this
that individuality means limitations and unhappiness, or is
at least closely connected with them.
Professor Ostwald showed me the studio which now takes the place of the
laboratory. It is still part laboratory, for he is experimenting in
pigments and has invented new forms of crayons or pastels and methods
of fixation. In painting, as in everything else, he works with rapidity
and effectiveness. Three days at Niagara Falls gave him two dozen or
more pictures. He has a good eye for picturesqueness and uses vivid and
varied coloration. He utilized his time at the University of California
to get some fine views of Berkeley and Professor Loeb's seaside
laboratory. His stay at Harvard as exchange professor in 1905 gave
him many scenes from Marblehead and Cambridge, among them a striking
picture of the Harvard stadium seen across the river flats and looking
as imposing as the Coliseum. Photography he has practiced from boyhood.
It was by this and the manufacture of fireworks in his mother's kitchen
that he took his first steps in chemistry. He has always been fond of
music, both as listener and performer, playing the violin well, and,
says his conscientious biographer, the bassoon very badly. We are
also told that in his student days he composed a symphony, wrote much
poetry, and applied himself diligently to the study of the laws of
motion by experimenting for hours on the impact of elastic ivory balls
upon a plane green surface.
Walking, however, has ever been his chief recreation, if we can call
that a recreation which is the means of his most productive thought.
After lunch he showed me about his estate, a wooded upland overlooking
the village houses, clustered about kirk and _Gasthaus_, and, beyond,
the level, orderly Saxon landscape, with its leisurely windmills. The
winding walks appear to be sufficiently long to enable him to evolve
undisturbed the most complicated German sentence. The stranger can
find his way to Landhaus Energie by inquiring of a villager for "the
house with the big post box", for when Ostwald took up his residence
in Gross-Bothen, this provision had to be made for the enormous mail
coming to him from all parts of the world.
One can generally tell in Germany the date of erection or occupancy of
a country house by whether it is called a "_Villa_" or a "_Landhaus_."
The Germanic movement is bent upon expelling all the foreigners from
the language. So now we see _Fahrkarte_ in place of _Billet_, formerly
used; _Fern-sprecher_ in place of _Telefon; Zweikampf_ in place of
_Duell_; and _Einheitslehre_ in place of _Monismus._ The adoption of an
international auxiliary language would, Professor Ostwald explained to
me, facilitate this movement, for it would leave each local language to
develop in its own way, free from the penalty of isolation.
I thought, as I walked back through the smooth, clean, tree-lined road
to the railroad station, that here at least was a man who had attained
that internal peace and happiness, that external honor and usefulness,
which theoretically should reward all philosophers. Few men have so
wide a fame in science. Still fewer have so many devoted friends
among their former students. That he has any personal enemies it
would be hard to believe, though he has many opponents. He has earned
his success by his own exertions, working his way up to his present
position by sheer force of character and ability. He was the second
son of a master cooper of Riga, an old Hansa town of Baltic Russia. He
was born September 2, 1853, and educated at the _Real-gymnasium_ of
Riga and the University of Dorpat, Russia (1872-1875). His dissertation
at the conclusion of his course here, on "The Mass Action of Water",
broke new ground in a field that he was henceforth to make his own.
He thought himself lucky then to secure a position as assistant in
physics at Dorpat at two hundred and fifty dollars a year, because
this gave him an opportunity for research, and his master's and
doctor's dissertations attracted attention by their bold adoption and
development of the new theories of solutions and affinity. He utilized
his vacations at Riga in cultivating--by means of piano and paint
brush--the acquaintance of Fraulein Helene von Reyher, whom he married
when he was twenty-seven. His comrades reminded him that not long
before he had declared that he would never marry, for he should devote
all his time to science. But he answered: "I had to marry, because the
girl interfered with my work." The measure was efficacious, for she has
not interfered with his work since, even finding time to assist in his
literary labors, although she has brought up five children. They took
their wedding journey in a postwagon from Riga to Dorpat and set up
housekeeping with a kerosene stove and a small piano as their principal
furniture; no sofa. Readers who understand the importance of the sofa
in a German household will appreciate the deprivation. The next year
he was called to his native city as professor of chemistry in the Riga
Polytechnic, and in 1887 he left Russia for Germany to take the chair
of chemistry at Leipzig University.
In his study of men of science Ostwald has introduced the distinction
of classicist and romanticist. The classicist keeps to one line of
thought and develops it by himself logically and completely. His mind
works mathematically, and he is fond of systems and formulation, often
addicted to dogmatism. He is accurate and thorough, but deficient in
experimental ability and regardless of practical applications. He
is reluctant to publish and is apt to be a poor teacher, exerting
little personal influence on his students and sometimes none on his
contemporaries.
The romanticist, on the other hand, is usually a good teacher and often
the founder of a school of thought. He has the expansive temperament
and genial disposition; fond of conversation and given to rapid
publication. He carries on many different lines of work at the same
time and is eager to put them into practice as soon as possible. He is
an adventurous theorizer, willing to risk a leap in the dark, arriving
at conclusions by a sort of intuition and not always able to explain
how he got his results. He is, therefore, liable to make conspicuous
mistakes and is apt to be impatient of details. The romanticist gets
paid in current coin, that is to say, in the devotion of his disciples
and in honors from his colleagues, sometimes even in applause and
wealth from a grateful public. The classicist has to put up with
deferred payment, and his services to science often receive no adequate
recognition until after he is dead and sometimes not then.
Among American scientists we have almost perfect specimens of these two
genera. Count Rumford was a typical romanticist and Willard Gibbs a
typical classicist, and there was, as I have shown elsewhere,[14] the
greatest possible contrast in their characters and careers. Ostwald, it
is unnecessary to say, has all the characteristics of the romanticist.
He has become a world teacher through his books and periodicals. He has
trained in his laboratory Arrhenius, Nernst, and many others of almost
equal eminence. He has had the satisfaction of seeing his abstract
theories become the working basis of enormous industries.
It is worthy of note that the science which in Germany has been most
closely connected with the universities and in which the most pure
research has been done, has developed most rapidly and proved most
profitable. The annual value of the products of the chemical industries
of Germany is over three hundred million dollars. And this is only one
of the sources of the new wealth which is coming to Germany and making
that country one of the foremost of world powers. In Great Britain
emigration exceeds immigration, while in Germany of late the reverse
is true, although in Germany the increase in population from the
surplus of births over deaths is nine hundred thousand, twice what it
is in Great Britain. At this rate, Germany will soon have a population
twice as large as that of Great Britain. And the wealth of Germany is
increasing faster than the population, notwithstanding the heavy drains
of army and navy. I asked Professor Ostwald the cause of Germany's
amazing prosperity. "We Germans believe in science," he answered simply.
The ideals of system, economy, and efficiency which have been developed
in the laboratory have been applied in Germany more than elsewhere
to military affairs, the promotion of commerce, and methods of
administration. That the scientific view should prevail in dealing with
all social problems is Ostwald's intent, and in furtherance of this aim
he is devoting his chief attention to the discussion of the ethical
and political questions of the day through the Monist societies. As an
example of his mode of thought on such topics, I quote a passage from
his "Individuality and Immortality":
There can be no doubt about nature being full of cruelty.
All through the whole realm of organic beings we find in
nearly every class of animals and plants some species
which live at the expense of their fellow creatures. I
mean parasitic organisms of every kind, whether they live
in the interior of their hosts, whom they kill or make
miserable, or whether they feed directly on other creatures.
No one thinks of punishing a cat who tortures a poor mouse
for no vital purpose whatever, and we find it perfectly
natural that the larvæ of certain wasps should develop
in the interior of caterpillars, slowly devouring their
hosts from within. It is only man who tries to change this
general way of nature's and to diminish as far as possible
cruelty and injustice to his fellow man and his fellow
creatures. And from the strong desire that this black stain
should be removed as fully as possible from humanity, the
idea developed that there must be beyond our bodily life
a possibility of compensating for the evil which is done
and for that which is suffered during life without due
punishment or reward as suggested by our sense of justice.
But reward and punishment take on a wholly different aspect
when we regard mankind as one collective being. Then the
single individual is comparable to a cell in a highly
developed organism. Destruction of his fellow cells would be
a nuisance and a menace to the whole organism, and therefore
any cell which destroyed its neighbors would be either
removed from the organism or else encysted and kept from
doing further damage. And on the other hand such cells as
fulfilled useful purposes would be nourished and protected.
The very necessity for overcoming such dangerous actions on
the part of the cells means a decrease in the efficiency of
the organism, since the work necessary for the purpose could
be better used for the immediate benefit of the organism
itself. The best thing would then be to avoid beforehand the
formation of such bad cells, and an organism possessed of
appropriate means of doing this would have a great advantage.
The application of these considerations to the human
collective organism is obvious. Punishment means in every
case a loss, and the aim of increasing culture is not to
make punishment more effective, but to make it unnecessary.
The more each individual is filled with the consciousness
that he belongs to the great collective organism of
humanity, the less will he be able to separate his own aims
and interests from those of humanity. A reconciliation
between duty to the race and personal happiness is the
result, as well as an unmistakable standard by which to
judge our own actions and those of our fellow men.
Self-sacrifice has been considered in all ages and by
all religions as the very highest perfection of ethical
development. At the same time every man who has thought
a little deeper has been aware that the self-sacrifice
must have a meaning, that it must result in some effect
which could not be attained by other means. Otherwise the
self-sacrifice would not be a gain, but rather a loss, to
humanity. But we consider self-sacrifice for the sake of
humanity as justified, and this corresponds with our general
feeling. We admire a man who throws himself into a fire or
a torrent to save a child from death; it should mean even
more to us when a physician goes into the midst of a raging
pestilence conscious of the peril awaiting him. But we do
not esteem a man the more for risking his life to save his
money from a burning house.
* * * * *
HOW TO READ OSTWALD
The only one of Ostwald's philosophical works which is obtainable in
English is the "Grundriss der Naturphilosophie", published in Reclam's
_Universal-Bibliothek_ (Leipzig) and translated by Thomas Seltzer and
published by Henry Holt & Company, New York, under the title "Natural
Philosophy." This is intended as a succinct popular exposition of the
fundamental principles of all the sciences and is mostly devoted to a
systematic consideration of the theory of knowledge and laws of logic.
It is, therefore, not so interesting to the general reader as some
of his untranslated works in which he discusses a variety of ethical
and social questions from the scientific standpoint, as for example
"Die Forderung des Tages" ("The Day's Demands") (Leipzig: Akademische
Verlagsgesellschaft). His "Grosse Männer" (same publisher) contains
biographical sketches of Davy, Mayer, Faraday, Liebig, Gerhardt,
and Helmholtz as well as his general observations on the character
and training of scientific discoverers. Ostwald's Harvard lecture
on "Individuality and Immortality" was published by the Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1906. He is now issuing a series of informal talks
on scientific ideals and morals under the title of "Monistische
Sonntagspredigten" (Verlag des Deutschen Monisten-Bundes in Berlin).
A second series was published by the Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft,
Leipzig, and a third by the Verlag Unesma, Leipzig. A few of the titles
will indicate their character and scope: "Love One Another", "The Jatho
Case", "How Evil Came into the World", "The Freedom of the Will",
"What is Truth?" "Nietzsche and the Struggle for Existence", "Natural
Science and Paper Science", "The Philosopher's Stone", "Efficiency."
The last named was published in _The Independent_, October 19,
1911. "The Wave Theory of History", an explanation of the cause of
periodic alternations in finance and politics, was published in _The
Independent_, July 10, 1913. An article, "Breaking Barriers", appeared
in _The Masses_, February, 1911. It is greatly to be desired that all
of these "Monistic Sunday Sermons" as well as "The Day's Duty" and
"Great Men" be translated into English, as they represent a point of
view of growing importance in modern thought.
Other articles by Ostwald accessible in English are: "The Philosophical
Meaning of Energy", in _The International Quarterly_, Vol. VII; "The
Modern Theory of Energetics", with criticism by Dr. Carus, in _The
Monist_, 1907; "Chemical Energy" in the _Journal of the American
Chemical Society_, August, 1893, and in the Smithsonian Report for
1893; "A Contribution to the Theory of Science", his address before the
Section of Methodology at the St. Louis Congress, in _Popular Science
Monthly_, 1905, p. 219; "The Art of Making Discoveries", in _Science
American Supplement_, No. 1807; a character sketch of Sir William
Ramsay in _Nature_, January 11, 1912.
Of Ostwald's chemical works the following have been translated into
English: "Conversations on Chemistry" (Wiley). "Manual of Physical
and Chemical Measurements" (Macmillan), translated by James Walker.
"The Scientific Foundation of Analytical Chemistry", translated by
G. McGowan (Macmillan). "Solutions", translated by M. Pattison Muir
(Longmans). "The Principles of Inorganic Chemistry", translated by
Alex. Findlay (Macmillan). "The Fundamental Principles of Chemistry",
translated by Harry W. Morse (Longmans). "Letters to a Painter on
Theory and Practice", translated by Morse (Ginn).
The serious student of Ostwald's thought will of course devote himself
chiefly to his "Annalen der Natur- und Kulturphilosophie" (Leipzig:
Verlag Unesma). The latest and most complete summary of his conception
of the universe is given in "Die Philosophie der Werte" (Alfred
Kröner, Leipzig, 1914). In the Lübeck lecture, "Die Ueberwindung des
wissenschaftlichen Materialismus" (_Zeitschrift für physikalische
Chemie, Band_ 18, pp. 305-320, and separately published by Veit,
Leipzig, 1895), and the "Vorlesungen über Naturphilosophie" (Veit,
1902) he laid the foundations of his theory. In "Die energetische
Grundlagen der Kulturwissenschaft" (Leipzig, 1909) he extended it
to include the science of civilization. In "Die wissenschaftliche
Stellung" ("Annalen der Naturphilosophie", Vol. X), he defends himself
against certain misconceptions, as, for example, that he makes energy
the sole reality in the world, or a metaphysical principle like
Hartmann's "Unconscious." Ostwald's educational view may be found
in chapters of "Die Forderung des Tages", in the article on "The
University of the Future and the Future of the University" ("Annalen
der Naturphilosophie", Vol. X, p. 236), and in "Wider das Schulelend,
Ein Notruf" (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft). "Erfinder und
Entdecker" contains sketches of Mayer, Helmholtz, and Liebig (Vol.
XXIV of _Die Gesellschaft_, Frankfurt a. M.: Rütten und Leoning). "Die
Energie" is a popular exposition of energetics (Vol. I of Wissen und
Können. Leipzig: Barth). Ostwald's contributions to internationalism
are mostly published by _Die Brücke_, Munich. His popular propaganda
of the gospel of Monism is now carried on by the weekly organ of the
society, which he edits, _Das Monistische Jahrhundert_ (Verlag Unesma,
Leipzig).
An intimate and appreciative sketch of the life and work of "Wilhelm
Ostwald" was written by P. Walden on the twenty-fifth anniversary of
his doctorate (Leipzig: Engelmann).
There is space here to give only a few references to discussions and
criticisms of Ostwald's theories. Doctor Roberty, in "Energétique
et Sociologie" (_Revue philosophique_, January, 1910), shows the
vast importance of Ostwald's extension of the laws of energetics
to vital and social phenomena. A painstaking comparison of the
contradictory theories of Lombroso and Ostwald on the character of
genius is contributed by Georg Wendel to _Zeit. für Philosophie_,
1910. In the _Vierteljahrsschrift für wiss. Philosophie und
Soziologie_ for 1905 will be found _Bemerkungen über die Metaphysik
in der Ostwald'schen Energetik_, by F. W. Adler, and _Atomistik und
Energetik von Standpunkte ökonomischer Naturbetrachtung,_ by Hermann
Wolff. F. Dennert in his volume on "Die Weltanschauung des modernen
Naturforschers" (Stuttgart, 1907) devotes a chapter to Ostwald.
I must also mention the valuable articles contributed by Doctor
Fielding H. Garrison to the _New York Medical Journal_, September 11,
1909, on "Physiology and the Second Law of Thermodynamics", in which
he discusses the application of the theories of Gibbs and Ostwald to
biology.
[1] The reader who is interested and reads German will find a full
discussion of the formula and its significance in _Die Forderung des
Tages_.
[2] My unconventional definitions of the second law would be repudiated
by any self-respecting physicist. The reader is therefore warned that
the proper way to say it is, "the entropy of the universe tends to a
maximum." (Clausius.)
[3] _Was ist Wahrheit?_ (_Monistiche Sonntagspredigten, Nr. 5._)
[4] _Der energetische Imperativ, Ann. d. Nat. Phil_., Vol. X.
[5] Printed in _The Independent_, October 19, 1911.
[6] See Flammarion's scientific fantasy, _Lumen_.
[7] Laughter. An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. By Henri Bergson.
The Macmillan Company.
[8] Die Ueberwindung des wissenschaftlichen Materialismus. Lübeck
address before the German Association of Naturalists and Physicians.
[9] J. Willard Gibbs: "Thermodynamische Studien." Uebersetzt von W.
Ostwald. Leipzig: W. Engelmann. 1892.
[10] _Nature_, 64, 428 (1901).
[11] "Kultur und Duell" in "Die Forderung des Tages."
[12] Ostwald devoted the $40,000 he got from the Nobel Fund to the
attempt to introduce a new language, Ido. Mistral devoted his to the
attempt to perpetuate an old language, Provençal. So we see that
dynamite money, like dynamite itself, exerts its force in opposite
directions.
[13] Spencer laid the foundation of his philosophy in the essay on
"Progress: Its Law and Cause" more than twenty years before the
publication of Clausius's "Die mechanische Warmetheorie."
[14] "Leading American Men of Science." (Holt & Company.)