The problem, “Are there things in themselves?” is closely connected with
the subject of my discussion with Professor Mach. Professor Mach as
well as myself are aspiring to arrive at a consistent and harmonious or
unitary world-conception. Both of us recognise that things in themselves
have no room in a monistic philosophy, both of us recognise that concepts
are means only of orientation, they are the mental tools of living beings
developed as an assistance in dealing with the surrounding world. They
are symbols in which the processes of nature are copied and imitated and
which can serve for planning or modeling and thus predetermining the
course of nature. So far we agree, but then there appears a difference
which it is difficult for me to understand or formulate in precise terms.
Professor Mach objects to the dualism of motion and feeling, which he
declares he conceives as a unity not as a duality. But so do I. It
appears to me that we must differ somehow in the method of constructing
the unity. I see indeed a contrast of physical and of psychical. This
contrast, however, in my conception does not belong to the object but to
the subject. It is a contrast of our conception of things, but it is not
a contrast existing objectively in the real things themselves. The world
is not composed of the psychical and the physical, but certain features
of the world are called physical, and others psychical. Both terms are
abstracts.
Professor Mach said in his first article and repeats it again in the
present article that his former standpoint resembles very closely my
present standpoint. When reading Professor Mach’s lectures of 1863,
I took pains to look for the similarity, and finding many things in
which I could agree I dropped the differences taking the agreements
as the essential points. In reading, however, Professor Mach’s résumé
of his former position as stated in this present article, I find that
he attaches prominence to several points which I cannot endorse.
I do not accept the theory that atoms feel, that they are endowed
with consciousness. I have never spoken of atoms when dealing with
psychological problems. The term “atom” is a chemical term invented
as a help for thinking the equivalence of the weight of the elements
which always combine in definite proportions. The term “atom” has in
my opinion no sense if applied to other phenomena. The term “atom” has
not been abstracted from psychical phenomena nor has it been invented
for describing them. There is accordingly no probability that it can
find there any appropriate application. We might as well expect that
mathematical terms such as lines, points, circles, etc., are applicable
in psychology. The idea of conscious circles or points can not in my mind
be more absurd than that of conscious atoms. The rule must be observed
that we can use abstractions made for a special purpose for that purpose
only; they will not serve any other purpose as well. It is true that they
are often employed as analogies, but in such cases, we must bear in mind
that we are dealing with mere analogies.
In addition to the impropriety of using the term atoms in psychology, it
appears to me erroneous to attribute feeling or anything like feeling
to physical processes of any description. Natural processes are so
constituted, that under certain conditions, such as take place in animal
organisms, they will develop feelings. Clifford speaks in this sense of
the elements of feeling. Lloyd Morgan calls it metakinesis, and I find
that feelings being simply states of awareness represent the subjectivity
of natural processes. We have reasons to suppose that in the processes
of unorganised nature this subjectivity is neither feeling nor anything
like feeling: but the subjectivity of the natural processes is as it were
the stuff out of which our own feelings are formed.
I accept all the arguments of Professor Mach that our ideas are
artificial products; and I am also anxious to distinguish in our ideas
between that which describes facts and that which has been added to the
description of facts in shape of theories or conjectures.
The sense-pictures of objects and ideas also are not things but images
and symbols of things created for the purpose of representing things;
they are as Prof. Lloyd Morgan says, “constructs.” But these constructs
are not mere fancy, they are not air-castles. They are constructed in
order to imitate certain realities. Now, in building these constructs
as an imitation or a copy of reality, we are often at a loss how to
build them. There is for instance in the objective reality observed, a
something somewhere high in the air, the basis of which is invisible,
and being limited in our means of acquiring information we are ignorant
of the real state of things. So in reconstructing or imitating the
facts, we build scaffolds to support it, and we are too apt to forget
that these scaffolds do not represent objective facts but are artifices
to make certain facts, which we know in parts only, thinkable, i. e.
representable without breaks in mental constructs.