Actuality, when, where, and howsoever it makes itself manifest, really
means nothing more than this--action is present. For actuality is
action, doing, the power to do itself. It tells us, however, nothing at
all as to how this action is bound to take place. Whence comes it then
that science has the presumption to dictate to actuality a definite
kind of action--would have it, so to speak, run along fixed rails?
The one-sided requirement of science that all action must be mediate,
demonstrable in space and time, follows perforce from the position she
takes up towards nature.
Science is only possible where there is the perceptible to sense--where
there is what can be compared.
Comparison is only possible where things are so arranged that the
actual energies can be neglected. For every energy is something unique,
strictly individual, not comparable, as my consciousness immediately
proves to me.
This leaving out of account of the actual energies is only possible
in the world of reactions. Here it is possible, and therefore also
legitimate, to regard any kind of process as a something constant and
complete, as a product, and correspondingly to treat it as such. Every
physicist knows that the grocer’s pound weight, as well as the grain
of his own scales, rigorously tested, to-morrow are no longer the same
as they were to-day. Nevertheless we make a compromise with actuality
and act as though they were the same. It suffices for all practical
purposes, and so is permissible. Here one is not at all aiming at a
world-theory; one only seeks to measure and weigh, and satisfy certain
needs.
This compromise with actuality--the looking upon things as finished,
completed--is forced upon us by the idea of identity, with which
all mental life, without exception, operates. And the physicist
accommodates himself to this idea with his concept of “body.”
Body, in the physical acceptation of the word, is nowhere to be found
in actuality; none the less the physicist is justified in making use
of this idea so long as, in the pursuit of his aims, he can do so
with advantage--that is, so long as it is a question of measuring and
determining in advance.
The re-actual point of view of science involves as logical correlate
the merging in one, of “motion” as manifesting itself to sense, and
“energy.” Aught else corresponding to energy besides motion itself is
not to be found in the re-actual world of the physicist. Here motion is
energy itself.
Under these two preliminary conditions--the regarding of things as
“bodies,” and their motions as energies themselves--the play of
world-events displays itself in its entirety to perception by the
senses; and every effect is something mediate, possible of being
followed up in space and time.
But the movements that are perceptible to sense are just as little the
energies themselves as “bodies,” in the physical acceptation of the
word, are actuality.
The sensible motion is not the energy; it is only the evidence that
energies are present.
When two electro-magnets, placed in a certain position with reference
to each other, go through circular movements, this does not mean that
these circular movements are the energies themselves; it only means
that energies are there present, and of themselves prove themselves
such by producing effects.
When a geyser discharges water every hour, it does not mean that this
kind of action is energy itself; it means nothing more than that
energies _are there present_, and as such are at work.
The earth’s course round the sun does not represent energy itself; it
means nothing more than that energies are there present, and as such
are at work.
_Motion is not energy itself, but the by-product yielded by two systems
of energies acting on each other._ This by-product will manifest
itself, according to circumstances and antecedent conditions, at
one time as circular, at another time as elliptical, at another as
rhythmical motion, and so forth.
In its essential nature this by-product--the movement perceptible to
sense--corresponds wholly and completely to a shadow. As a shadow means
nothing save that light is present--it is nothing but the by-product
of two systems of energies, one giving, the other receiving, light--so
“movement” means nothing save that energy is there present. It is
nothing but the by-product of two systems of energies.
It is absolutely essential that the genuine thinker should make this
idea as to the intrinsic nature of all motion his own. As little as
it is possible ever to draw from shadows any conclusion as to light
itself--saving the one conclusion that it _must be present_--just as
little is it possible ever to draw from movements any conclusion as to
the energies themselves, saving only that they must be present. The
energies themselves withal remain wholly inaccessible. As to whether
these are transmitted mediately or immediately, the fact “movement”
supplies no information whatever.
Here the physicist will say, “That the movements are transmitted
mediately is proved to me by experiment, since I can intercept an
energy on its way at as many intermediate stations as I choose; hence,
as mediate, can track its path.”
But this is a grossly erroneous conclusion.
To be sure, if I have a magnet here and a needle there, I can intercept
the magnetic energy at as many intermediate stations as I choose, and
so construct for myself a “path” for the energy. But such a “path” is
nothing but a dead line artificially made up of momentary reactions
whose continuity is nothing actual and vital, but founded solely upon
the minuteness and multiplicity of the moments of section.