If there is any _substans_ lying at the foundation of things, it must
be a “constant in itself”; as such, however, it must be something
possessing no possibility whatever of entering into relations with
other things, in any kind of way. If it cannot do this, neither can
it become perceptible to sense. If it does not become perceptible to
sense, it cannot become a content of consciousness.
Here it may be said: “But it is not _substans_ itself, but its
expressions, _i.e._ things, in so far as they are properties,
functions, that enter into relations, whether with other things or with
the organs of sense of living beings.” But from this we could never get
anything else but a summation of disconnected sense-impressions. The
thread, so to speak, needed to string the sense-impressions together
into a complete, coherent, mental representation would be missing.
Everything, so far as it exists for me as a concept, would have to
be the expression precisely of a _substans_ lying at its foundation.
But to possess a conscious mental representation of this as an
unconditioned constant is a contradiction in itself. Hence the fact
that there are concepts, _i.e._ that a world as such exists, _i.e._
that there is a world at all, is a direct contradiction of the idea of
a _substans_ in virtue of which things are supposed to have existence.
With the admission of this idea, every possibility of understanding how
such a thing as a content of consciousness ever could come to be, is
wholly excluded.
In point of fact, all life, within the boundaries of materialism and
idealism, exhausts itself in fruitless attempts to furnish more or
less ingenious explanations to account for the connection between the
physical and the psychical. Hence the perpetual game of see-saw between
both, and the utter inadequacy of either to the genuine thinker,
however much ability may be displayed within the limits of the position
chosen. All becomes valueless, because the outcome of a presupposition
that is a standing contradiction of itself.
And now, how stands it here with the view of the world from which
_substans_ is absent?
As already said: Where the idea of _substans_ is torn out of the play
of world-events, nothing remains but a world of pure relation-values
wherein the one thing constant is the constancy of the relations.
Now, every relation is precisely the inconstant, the unstable, in
itself. The heat that springs up with the friction of two objects
may--nay, _must_ be looked upon as a relation-value springing up anew
with each new moment. Every moment may be represented as consisting
of an infinite number of fractions of a moment; in short, it is the
unstable in itself.
If now one apprehends the whole play of world-events as
relation-values, thereby not only do the phenomena resulting from the
play of things upon one another, but also the things themselves, become
simple relation-values, and so also examples of the unstable in itself.
Into anything by nature an unstable, connection can only enter through
me, the beholder, introducing it in my comprehension of the same. Here
the binding thread is lacking in things themselves; with the idea “pure
relation-values” one has pulled it out oneself, as is proven by modern
positivism itself, even if unwittingly, when it seeks to replace the
old succession of cause and effect by the timeless function-concept
of mathematics--a thing possible only where the actual cohesion is
absent.[35]
With this, however, one stands in a position of contradiction to
oneself, _i.e._ to actuality. For if the whole play of world-events,
without any exception, is only a relation-value, then I myself am a
relation-value also. But if that were so, “memory” would be impossible.
In “memory” I _experience_ the cohesion of myself, and through myself
prove to myself that I am not a mere relation-value. As such--as Hering
rightly remarks in his lecture _Das Gedächtnis_--our consciousness
would consist of just as many splinters as one could count moments;
which is simply an analytical mode of expression for the fact that
there would be no consciousness at all. This in turn would mean that
there could be no world _as such_, as our mental representation. And
this in its turn would mean that there could be no world at all. For it
is absurd to speak of a world where there is no consciousness in which
it is represented as such. Without consciousness, however it might run
its course, experience would know nothing of itself.
The conception of a world-theory devoid of _substans_ thus also
terminates in a contradiction in itself, even as those world-theories
which operate with the conception of a _substans_.
As a matter of fact, every scientific view of the world demonstrates
its inadequacy in respect of this first question in that it answers it
in a manner against all common-sense without itself observing that this
is so.
According to the view of science, concepts have their origin in
experience and come to be through the discarding, the letting drop, of
the unessential. But in order that a concept may come into existence
after such a fashion, it is necessary that it exist beforehand as a
thing given, in the same way that a statue can only come forth from out
the block of marble through the discarding of the unessential, when it
is already given ideally in the mind of the artist.[36]
As already remarked, all attempts to frame a view of the world upon
purely scientific lines, to comprehend the play of world-events as
simple relation-values, present themselves in a twofold form. Making
physics its point of departure and from thence working its way forward,
one view endeavours to prove the law of the conservation of energy
valid also for non-reversible processes; this is the world-theory of
energetics. The other view follows the results of criticism; this is
modern positivism.
The entire value of the world-theory of energetics is distinguished by
the following consideration:--
Its axis, its thorough bass--so to speak--is the law of the
conservation of energy; once this gives way, no energical world-theory
is possible.
As, however, has been explained in another place, nowhere in actuality
do conditions obtain corresponding to this law. Its existence
merely as a possibility demands an artificial premiss--a completely
closed system; but this exists only as an ideal ultimate concept
(_Grenzbegriff_)--nowhere in actuality.
If it is desired to make use of the law of the conservation of energy
with a view to erecting a world-theory thereupon, one must set up
the entire universe hypothetically as a closed system in itself. The
logical consequences that necessarily follow from this supposition are
detailed at the close of Essay VI.
The purely ideal nature of the point of view occupied by science in
this whole picture of the world is at once evident from the simple fact
that, in order to maintain the constancy of the sum of energy in the
universe, she here finds herself in the predicament of still having to
“handle” as energy heat that no longer permits of being transformed
into mechanical work--that is, heat that exists only as an empty
concept.
At this stage I wish once more to insist that this entire world-theory
does not at all operate with actual energies, but only with the
_expression_ of actual energies, with their _reaction_ as presented in
_work done_. It assumes work and energy to be synonymous; which is
about the same as if one assumed shadow and light to be synonymous. As
shadow attests nothing save that light is present, but attests this of
necessity, so work attests nothing save that energy is present. Ostwald
in his _Naturphilosophie_, after expressly assuming work and energy to
be alike, proceeds thus:--
“With the exception of energy, all the other concepts whose importance
comes second to that of the law of the conservation of energy, find
their application only within a limited field of natural phenomena.
Energy alone finds itself again, without exception, in all natural
phenomena; that is to say, all natural phenomena permit of being ranged
under the concept of energy.” Further on he says: “All that we know
of the external world we can represent in the form of propositions
concerning actually-existing energies; hence the concept of energy
proves itself in every way the most universal that science has yet
framed. It comprehends not only the problem of substance, but also that
of causality.”
Taken literally, word for word, all this is quite correct, and yet
as a whole is founded in a total misunderstanding of actuality.
That all natural phenomena should admit of being ranged under the
concept of energy, _i.e._ of _work done_, is due solely to the
fact that _everywhere actual energies_ are in activity; of these
energies, however, we know nothing, absolutely nothing; and their
universal presence is proven solely by the universal presence of
work. And that work is only the reaction of actual energies is made
evident by the fact that the one single _actual_ energy we can get
at--consciousness--is the one single value in the universe which never
under any circumstances admits of being “read” as work.