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Ludwig Büchner |
| This is one of the most successful, and early, statements on Materialism stemming from the conclusions of the New Science. Force and Matter No force without matter---no matter without force! Neither can be thought
of per se; separated, they become empty abstractions. Imagine matter without
force, and the minute particles of which a body consists, without that
system of mutual attraction and repulsion which holds them together and
gives form and shape to the body; imagine the molecular forces of cohesion
and affinity removed, what then would be the consequence? The matter must
instantly break up into a shapeless nothing. We know in the physical world
of no instance of any particle of matter which is not endowed with forces,
by means of which it plays its appointed part in some form or another,
sometimes in connection with similar or with dissimilar particles. Nor
are we in imagination capable of forming a conception of matter without
force. . . . Force without matter is equally an idle notion. It being
a law admitting of no exception that force can only be manifested in matter,
it follows that force can as little possess a separate existence as matter
without force.... What are the philosophical consequences of this simple and natural truth?
That those who talk of a creative power, which is said to have produced
the world out of itself, or out of nothing, are ignorant of the first
and most simple principle, founded upon experience and the contemplation
of nature. How could a power have existed not manifested in material substance,
but governing it arbitrarily according to individual views? Neither could
separately existing forces be transferred to chaotic matter and produce
the world in this manner; for we have seen that a separate existence of
either is an impossibility. It will be shown in the chapter which treats
of the imperishability of matter that the world could not have originated
out of nothing. A nothing is not merely a logical but also an empirical
nonentity. The world, or matter with its properties which we term forces,
must have existed from eternity and must last forever---in one word, the
world cannot have been created. The notion "eternal" is certainly
one which, with our limited faculties, is difficult of conception. The
facts, nevertheless, leave no doubt as to the eternity of the world.... Immortality of Matter Matter is immortal, indestructible. There is not an atom in the universe
which can be lost. We cannot, even in thought, remove or add an atom without
admitting that the world would thereby be disturbed and the laws of gravitation
and the equilibrium of matter interfered with. It is the great merit of
modern chemistry to have proved in the most convincing manner that the
uninterrupted change of matter which we daily witness, the origin and
decay of organic and inorganic forms and tissues, do not arise, as was
hitherto believed, from new materials, but that this change consists in
nothing else but the constant and continuous metamorphosis of the same
elementary principles, the quantity and quality of which ever is, and
ever remains, the same. Matter has, by means of the scales, been followed
in all its various and complicated transitions, and everywhere has it
been found to emerge from any combination in the same quantity as it has
entered. The calculations founded upon this law have everywhere proved
to be perfectly correct. .. . How can anyone deny the axiom that out of nothing, nothing can arise?
The matter must be in existence, though previously in another form and
combination, to produce or to share in any new formation. All atom of
oxygen, of nitrogen, or of iron, is everywhere and under all circumstances
the same thing, endowed with the same immanent qualities, and can never
in all eternity become anything else. Be it wheresoever it will, it must
remain the same; from every combination, however heterogeneous, must it
emerge the self-same atom. But never can an atom arise anew or disappear:
it can only change its combinations. For these reasons is matter immortal:
and for this reason is it, as already shown, impossible that the world
can have been created. How could anything be created that cannot be annihilated?
. . . There exists a phrase, repeated ad nauseam, of "mortal body
and immortal spirit." A closer examination causes us with more truth
to reverse the sentence. The body is certainly mortal in its individual form, but not in its constituents. It changes not merely in
death, but, as we have seen, also during life: however, in a higher sense
it is immortal, since the smallest particle of which it is composed cannot
be destroyed. On the contrary, that which we call "spirit" disappears
with the dissolution of the individual material combination; and it must
appear to any unprejudiced intellect as if the concurrent action of many
particles of matter had produced an effect which ceases with the cause.
Dignity of Matter To despise matter and our own body, because it is material---to consider
nature and the world as dust which we must endeavor to shake off---nay,
to torment our own body, can only arise from a confusion of notions, the
result of ignorance or fanaticism. Different feelings animate him who
has, with the eyes of an observer, followed matter in its recondite gyrations,
who has marked its various and manifold phenomena. He has learned that
matter is not inferior to but the peer of spirit; that one cannot exist
without the other; and that matter is the vehicle of all mental power,
of all human and earthly greatness. We may, perhaps, share with one of
our greatest naturalists his enthusiasm for matter, "the veneration
of which formerly called forth an accusation." Whoever degrades matter,
degrades himself; who abuses his body, abuses his mind and injures himself
to the same degree as, in his foolish imagination, he believed to have
profited his soul. We frequently hear those persons contemptuously called
materialists, who do not share the fashionable contempt for matter but
endeavor to fathom by its means the powers and laws of existence; who
have discerned that spirit could not have built the world out of itself,
and that it is impossible to arrive at a just conception of the world
without an exact knowledge of matter and its laws. In this sense, the
name of materialist can nowadays be only a title of honor. It is to materialists
that we owe the conquest over matter and a knowledge of its laws, so that,
almost released from the chains of gravitation, we fly with the swiftness
of the wind across the plain and are enabled to communicate, with the
celerity of thought, with the most distant parts of the globe. Malevolence
is silenced by such facts; and the times are past in which a world, produced
by a deceitful fancy, was considered of more value than the reality.... Increased knowledge has taught us to have more respect for the matter
without and within us. Let us, then, cultivate our body no less than our
mind; and let us not forget that they are inseparable, so that which profits
the one, profits the other! Mens sana in corpore sano. On the other
hand, we must not forget that we are but a vanishing, though necessary,
part of the whole, which sooner or later must again be absorbed in the
universe. Matter in its totality is the mother, engendering and receiving
again all that exists. Immutability of the Laws of Nature The laws according to which nature acts, and matter moves, now destroying,
now rebuilding, and thus producing the most varied organic and inorganic
forms, are eternal and unalterable. An unbending, inexorable necessity
governs the mass. "The law of nature," observes Moleschott,
"is a stringent expression of necessity." There exists in it
neither exception nor limitation, and no imaginable power can disregard
this necessity. A stone not supported will in all eternity fall toward
the center of the earth; and there never was, and never will be, a command
for the sun to stand still. The experience of thousands of years has impressed
upon the investigator the firmest conviction of the immutability of the
laws of nature, so that there cannot remain the least doubt in respect
to this great truth. Science has gradually taken all the positions of the childish belief
of the peoples; it has snatched thunder and lightning from the hands of
the gods; the eclipse of the stars, and the stupendous powers of the Titans
of the olden time, have been grasped by the fingers of man. That which
appeared inexplicable, miraculous, and the work of a supernatural power,
has, by the torch of science, proved to be the effect of hitherto unknown
natural forces. The power of spirits and gods dissolved in the hands of
science. Superstition declined among cultivated nations, and knowledge
took its place. We have the fullest right, and are scientifically correct,
in asserting there is no such thing as a miracle; everything that happens
does so in a natural way---i.e., in a mode determined only by accidental
or necessary coalition of existing materials and their immanent natural
forces. No revolution on earth or in heaven, however stupendous, could
occur in any other manner. It was no mighty arm reaching down from the ether which raised the mountains,
limited the seas, and created man and beast according to pleasure, but
it was effected by the same forces which to this day produce hill and
dale and living beings; and all this happened according to the strictest
necessity.... The fate of man resembles the fate of nature. It is similarly dependent
on natural laws, and it obeys without exception the same stringent and
inexorable necessity which governs all that exists. It lies in the nature
of every living being that it should be born and die; none has ever escaped
that law; death is the surest calculation that can be made, and the unavoidable
keystone of every individual existence. The supplications of the mother,
the tears of the wife, the despair of the husband, cannot stay his hands.
"The natural laws," says Vogt, "are rude unbending powers,
which have neither morals nor heart." No call can awaken from the
sleep of death; no angel can deliver the prisoner from the dungeon; no
hand from the clouds reaches bread to the hungry.... Apparent exceptions from the natural order have been called miracles,
of which there have been many at all times. Their origin must be ascribed
partly to superstition, and partly to that strange longing after what
is wonderful and supernatural, peculiar to human nature. It is somewhat
difficult for rnan, however evident the facts, to convince himself of
the conformity which surrounds him; it creates in him an oppressive feeling,
and the desire never leaves him to discover something which runs counter
to this conformity. This desire must have had a larger sphere among savage
and ignorant tribes. We should only waste words in our endeavor to prove
the natural impossibility of a miracle. No educated, much less a scicntific,
person, who is convinced of the immutable order of things, can nowadays
believe in miracles.... It is not within our province to concern ourselves with those who, in
their attempts to explain the secret of existence, turn to faith. We are
occupied with the tangible sensible world, and not with that which every
individual may imagine to exist. What this or that man may understand by a governing reason, an absolute
power, a universal soul, a personal God, etc., is his own affair. The
theologians, with their articles of faith, must be left to themselves;
so the naturalists with their science: they both proceed by different
routes. The province of faith rests in human dispositions, which are not
accessible to science; and even for the conscience of the individual,
it does not appear impossible to keep faith and science separate. A respectable
naturalist recently gave the ingenuous advice that we should keep two
consciences, a scientific and a religious conscience, which for the peace
of our mind we should keep perfectly separate, as they cannot be reconciled.
This process is now known by the technical expression of "bookkeeping
by double entry." We said the advice was ingenuous, because he whose
conviction permits him to keep such a conscience by double entry stands
in no need of advice. Periods of the Creation of the Earth The investigations of geology have thrown a highly interesting and important
light on the history of the origin and gradual development of the earth.
It was in the rocks and strata of the crust of the earth, and in the organic
remains, that geologists read, as in an old chronicle, the history of
the earth. In this history they found the plainest indications of several
stupendous successive revolutions, now produced by fire, now by water,
now by their combined action. These revolutions afforded, by the apparent
suddenness and violence of their occurrence, a welcome pretext to orthodoxy
to appeal to the existence of supernatural powers, which were to have
caused these revolutions in order to render, by gradual transitions, the
earth fit for certain purposes. This successive periodical creation is
said to have been attended with a successive creation of new organic beings
and species. The Bible, then, was right in relating that God had sent
a deluge over the world to destroy a sinful generation. God with His own
hands is said to have piled up mountains, planed the sea, created organisms,
etc. All these notions concerning a direct influence of supernatural or inexplicable
forces have melted away before the age of modern science. Like astronomy,
which with mathematical certainty has measured the spaces of the heavens,
so does modern geology, by taking a retrospective view of the millions
of years which have passed, lift the veil which has so long concealed
the history of the earth and has given rise to all kinds of religious
and mysterious dreams. It is now known that there can be no discussion
about these periodic ereatiorts of the earth of which so much was said,
and which to this day an erroneous conception of nature tries to identify
with the so-called days of creation of the Bible, but that the whole past
of the earth is nothing but an unfolded present. However probable it may at first sight appear that the changes, the traces
of which we find in the crust of the earth, must have resulted from sudden
and violent convulsions, closer observation teaches, on the contrary,
that the greater portion of these changes is merely the result of a gradual,
slow action, continued through immeasurably long periods of time; and
that this action may still be observed going on, though on so reduced
a scale that the effects do not particularly strike us. "For the
earth," says Burmeister, "is solely produced by forces which,
with corresponding intensity, are still acting; it has never essentially
been subjected to more violent catastrophies; on the other hand, the period
of time in which the change was effected is immense, etc. What is really
surprising and stupendous in the process of development of the immeasurable
time within which it was effected." We see at present all these slow and local effects, which millions of
years have produced in their entirety, and cannot, therefore, divest ourselves
of the idea of a direct creative power, whilst we are merely surrounded
by the natural effects of natural forces The whole science of the conditions
of development of the earth is however, the greatest victory over every
kind of faith in an extramundane authority. This science, supported by
the knowledge of surrounding nature and its governing forces, is enabled
to trace the history of what has happened in infinite periods of time
with approximating exactness, frequently with certainty. It has proved
that everywhere, and at all times, only those materials and natural forces
were in activity by which we are at present surrounded. Nowhere was a
point reached, when it was necessary to stop scientific investigation
and to substitute the influence of unknown forces. Everywhere it was possible
to indicate or to conceive the possibility of visible effects from the
combination of natural conditions; everywhere existed the same law and
the same matter. Personal Continuance A spirit without body is as unimaginable as electricity or magnetism
without metallic or other substances on which these forces act. We have
equally shown that the animal soul does not come into the world with any
innate intuitions, that it does not represent an ens per se, but
is a product of external influences, without which it would never have
been called into existence. In the face of all these facts, unprejudiced
philosophy is compelled to reject the idea of an individual immortality
and of a personal continuance after death. With the decay and dissolution
of its material substratum, through which alone it has acquired a conscious
existence and become a person, and upon which it was dependent, the spirit
must cease to exist. All knowledge which this being has acquired relates
to earthly things; it has become conscious of itself in, with, and by
these things; it has become a person by its being opposed against earthly,
limited individualities. How can we imagine it to be possible that, torn
away from these necessary conditions, this being should continue to exist
with self-consciousness and as the same person? It is not reflection but
obstinacy and as the same person? It is not reflection but obstinacy,
not science but faith, which supports the idea of a personal continuance.... Free Will Man is a product of nature in body and mind. Hence not merely what he
is but also what he does, wills, feels, and thinks depends upon the same
natural necessity as the whole structure of the world Only a superficial
observation of human existence could lead to the conclusion that the actions
of nations and of individuals were the result of a perfectly free will.
A closer inquiry teaches us, on the contrary, that the connection of nature
is so essential and necessary, that free will, if it exist, can only have
a very limited range; it teaches us to recognize in all these phenomena
fixed laws which hitherto were considered as the results of free choice.
"Human liberty, of which all boast' says Spinoza, "consists
solely in this, that man is conscious of his will, and unconscious of
the causes by which it is determined " That this view is no longer theoretical, but sufficiently established
by fact is chiefly owing to that interesting new science of statistics,
which exhibts fixed laws in a mass of phenomena that until now were considered
to be arbitrary and accidental. The data for this truth are frequently
lost in investigating individual phenomena, but taken collectively they
exhibit a strict order, inexorably ruling men and humanity. It may, without
exaggeration, be stated that at present most physicians and practical
psychologists incline to the view in relation to free will that human
actions are, in the last instance, dependent upon a fixed necesity, so
that in every individual case free choice has only an extremely limited,
if any, sphere of action . . . The conduct and actions of every individual are dependent upon the character,
manners, and modes of thought of the nation to which he belongs. These
again are, to a certain extent, the necessary product of external circumstances
under which they live and have grown up.... If the nations are thus in the aggregate, in regard to character and
history, dependent upon external circumstances, the individual is no less
the product of external and internal natural actions, not merely in relation
to his physical and moral nature but in his actions. These actions depend
necessarily, in the first instance, upon his intellectual individuality.
But what is this intellectual individuality which determines man and prescribes
to him, in every individual case, his mode of action with such force that
there remains for him but a minute space for free choice; what else is
it but the necessary product of congenital physical and mental dispositions
in connection with education, example, rank, property, sex, nationality,
climate, soil, and other circumstances? Man is subject to the same laws
as plants and animals..... An unprejudiced study of nature and the world, based upon innumerable
facts, shows that the actions of individuals and of men in general are
determined by physical necessities which restrict free will within the
narrowest limits. Hence it has been concluded that the partisans of this
doctrine denied the discernment of crime and that they desired the acquittal
of every criminal, by which the state and society would be thrown into
a state of anarchy. We shall presently return to the last reproach which
has, by the way, thousands of times been made to natural science; as to
the first, it is too absurd to deserve any refutation. No scientific system
has rendered the necessity of social and political order more evident
than that to which natural science owes its progress, nor has any modem
naturalist denied to the state the right of legitimate defense against
attacks on the well-being of society. What is true is that the partisans
of these modern ideas hold different opinions as regards crime and would
banish that cowardly and irreconcilable hatred which the state and society
have hitherto cherished with so much hypocrisy as regards the malefactor.
Penetrated by such ideas, we cannot help a feeling of commiseration for
the offender, whilst we not the less abhor every action calculated to
disturb society; a humane sentiment, which gives the preference to preventive
measures over punishment... Concluding Observations We must finally be permitted to leave all questions about morality and
utility out of sight. The chief and indeed the sole object which concerned
us in these researches is truth. Nature exists neither for religion, for
morality, nor for human beings; but it exists for itself. What else can
we do but take it as it is? Would it not be ridiculous in us to cry like
little children because our bread is not sufficiently buttered? Source From: Ludwig Büchner, Force and Matter: Empirico-Philosophical Studies
Intelligibly Rendered, trans. J. F. Collingwood, (London, 1870), passim. Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been
modernized by Prof. Arkenberg. |