] D On the Study of Physics and Chemistry The various phenomena and forms known by experi- ence necessarily presuppose that of which they are mani- festations, i.e., matter or substance. Empiricism knows the latter only as bodies, that is, matter with variable forms, and conceives of even primal matter—when it refers to it at all—merely as an indefinable aggregate of corpuscles of unchangeable form, which for this rea- son are called atoms. In other words, empiricism has no knowledge of the original sources from which every- thing in nature comes and into which everything re- turns. To penetrate to the essence of matter, we must ab- stract from its particular forms (for instance, so-called organic or inorganic matter) for matter in itself is only the common seed of these forms. Taken in the absolute sense, it is the objective or real aspect of the eternal act by which the absolute becomes its own object. To dis- cover this essence of matter and to show how the par- ticular things and phenomena are produced by it are exclusively philosophical tasks. The first of these tasks has been sufficiently dealt with126 On University Srupies in the preceding lectures; I shall now confine myself to the second. Every Idea is inherently one, and the one Idea can produce an infinite number of things of the same kind—its infinite potentiality is not exhausted by any actuality. Since the absolute is indivisible, the par- ticularity of each Idea cannot consist in a negation of other Ideas, but only in this, that all are embodied in each in a manner compatible with its particular form. This order in the world of Ideas must be our model for the cognition of the visible world. In this world, too, the primary forms will be unities that contain all other forms as particulars and produce them; for this reason, they themselves appear as universals. The way in which they become extensional and fill space must be deduced from the way in which the one is eternally embodied in the many. In the Ideas, as has been shown, the one is identical with the many, but at the phenomenal level they are distinguishable and distinct. The primary uni- versal pattern of spatial extension is necessary because the sensible unities flow from a common central point at the phenomenal level, just as the Ideas flow from the absolute as their center. In other words, since each Idea is itself productive and can be a center, the particular things are produced from common central points and, like their archetypes, are in some respects dependent and in others independent. Next to the construction of matter, the cosmos and its laws are the first and noblest object of physical knowl- edge. As is well known, after Kepler's divine genius for- mulated these laws, the mathematical theory of nature has attempted to construct them on entirely empirical foundations. Now, we can accept as a general rule that whatever in an alleged construction is not pure uni- versal form can have neither scientific value nor truth.On the Study of Physics and Chemistry 127 Mathematical theory deduces the centrifugal motion of the celestial bodies not from a universal form, but from an empirical fact. From the point of view of reason, which conceives all things in terms of the absolute, the Newtonian force of attraction is meaningless; though it may be a necessary assumption from the reflective point of view, this force cannot serve in philosophical con- struction. It is possible to understand Kepler’s laws without any empirical aids, on the basis of the doctrine of the Ideas and the two unities which in themselves are one unity and in virtue of which every being, though it is absolute in itself, is at the same time in the absolute, and vice versa. Physical astronomy, the science of the particular quali- ties of the celestial bodies and their relations to one another, is entirely based upon broader conceptions and, particularly in respect to the planetary system, upon the correspondence which exists between this system and the products of the earth. The celestial body resembles the Idea of which it is a copy; like the Idea it is productive and brings forth all the forms of the universe. Matter, the body of the uni- verse at the phenomenal level, is itself differentiated into soul and body. The body of matter is made up of individual bodies; in it unity is wholly lost in multi- plicity and extension, and for this reason the individual material bodies appear as inorganic. The inorganic forms are the objects of a separate branch of knowledge, which is purely descriptive and correctly refrains from any reference to internal quali- ties. Now that the specific differences of matter have been reduced to quantitative differences—so that it has become possible to view matter as the metamorphosis of one and the same substance, a process of mere changes128 On Universiry Srupies of form—the way is paved for an historical construction of the system of material bodies, Henrik Steffens * has made a decisive beginning along these lines. Geology should do the same thing for the earth as a whole, It must not exclude any of the earth’s products; it should demonstrate the genesis of all in their his- torical continuity and interrelations. The real aspect of any science can only be historical (because, apart from science, only history aims directly at truth), and geology, when it has been fully developed, will be the history of nature, the earth merely its starting point. As such it would be the truly integrated and objective science of nature—experimental physics can be no more than a means to this end. Just as physical things are the body of matter, so light is its soul, its ideal aspect. In being thus related to matter, it becomes finite itself and, subsumed under extension, manifests itself as an ideal element which delineates space without filling it. In other words, it is the ideal element at the phenomenal level, but not the whole ideal aspect of the act by which the subject be- comes object (since part of it remains in the material element); it is only relatively ideal.* Knowledge of light is like knowledge of matter; in- deed, it is one with it, for each can be truly grasped only as the opposite of the other, as the subjective and the ob- jective aspect of one and the same reality. Since the spirit of nature, i.e., light, withdrew from physics, life in all the divisions of this science has been extinguished, because it can no longer make the transition to organic nature. Newtonian optics shows clearly how a whole structure of false conclusions can be built up on an experimental foundation. The truth is that the purpose of experi- ments and the sequence in which they are carried outOn the Study of Physics and Chemistry 129 are determined by a previously existing theory. The ex- perimenter discovers the natural order only in rare cases, when he happens to hit on it instinctively or is guided by a construction. And yet experimentation, which may disclose details but can never give a complete view, is still looked upon as the infallible principle of our knowledge of nature. The earth is a seed that only light can bring to ger- mination. For only after matter has been particularized and become form, is the universal essence of light dis- closed. The universal form in which bodies are particularized is that which makes them internally cohesive, identical with themselves. In it, unity is embodied in difference, and all specific differences of matter can be understood on the basis of their relations to this universal form. All things, as they emerge from identity, strive to return to unity; this striving is their ideal aspect, that which makes them appear animated. The noblest goal of physics, even in the ordinary nar- row sense, as divorced from organic nature, is to for- mulate an all-inclusive view of the living manifestations of bodies. These manifestations of the activity inherent in bodies have been called “dynamic” and the sum total of their various forms, “the dynamic process.” These forms are necessarily parts of a cycle and follow a common pattern. Only by determining this pattern can we be sure that no important link has been omitted and that we have not ascribed manifestations of a single principle to different causes. Ordinary experimental physics is in the greatest uncertainty on this score; it assumes a new principle to account for every newly dis- covered phenomenon and is at a loss to say which is derived from which.30 6©On Universiry Srupizs Evaluated by the standard previously defined, the cur- rent theories and the way these phenomena are ac- counted for are found wanting; nowhere in them is any form conceived of as universal and necessary, but only as contingent. There is no logical need to assume the existence of certain imponderable fluids to account for magnetic and electrical phenomena; the fact that these fluids are so constituted that their homogeneous ele- ments repel each other and their heterogeneous ele- ments attract each other is wholly accidental from the logical point of view. If we imagine that the world is made up of such hypothetical elements, we get the fol- lowing picture. In the pores of the coarser kinds of matter there is air; in the pores of the air there is phlogiston; in the pores of the latter, the electric fluid, which in turn contains in its pores the magnetic fluid, which in turn contains ether. At the same time, these different fluids, contained one within another, do not disturb one another, and each manifests itself in its own way at the physicist’s pleasure and never fails to go back to its own place, never getting lost. Clearly, this explana- tion, apart from its having no scientific value, cannot even be visualized. The Kantian construction of matter first led to a higher view directed against the materialistic approach, but all its positive elements remained at too low a level. The forces of attraction and repulsion, as Kant defined them, are merely formal factors deduced analytically from the concepts of the understanding; they give no idea of the life and essence of matter. Moreover, it is impossible, on the basis of relations between these forces which Kant conceived in quantitative terms, to account for the qualitative differences in matter. The followers of Kant, and the physicists who attempted to apply hisOn the Study of Physics and Chemistry 131 theories, retained only the negative elements of the dynamic conception. Similarly, they thought they had formulated a higher theory of light when they described it as nonmaterial. This theory, by the way, is compatible with other mechanical hypotheses—Euler’s, for example. ‘The error underlying all these views is the conception of matter as purely real. The subjective-objective char- acter of all things, and especially of matter, had to be established scientifically before the phenomena which express its inner life could be understood. The ground of the living manifestations of matter has been stated earlier: every individual thing exists in the universal soul and when separated from the One, strives to return to it. The particular forms of activity are not accidental but the original, inborn, necessary forms of matter. Just as the unity of the Idea unfolds into three dimensions at the level of existence, so life and activity, following the same pattern, are expressed in three forms which, like the three dimensions, are inherent in the es- sence of matter. By means of this construction we have not only established with certainty that the living mani- festations of matter have only these three forms, we have also discovered the universal law that governs all their special determinations and shows them to be necessary.* Here I shall confine myself to the chemical process, because the science of its phenomena has developed into a separate branch of the study of nature. In recent times, physics has become almost entirely subordinated to chemistry. The key to the explanation of natural phe- nomena, even the higher forms, such as magnetism, elec- tricity, etc., is supposed to be found in chemistry; and the more all explanation of nature has been reduced to chemistry, the more difficult chemists have found it to account for chemical phenomena. From the period of its132) Own University Strupies youth, when perception of the inner unity of all things came more naturally to the human mind, chemistry has inherited a number of figurative terms, such as affinity, for example, which, far from guiding this science toward an Idea, have provided a sanctuary for ignorance. What can be determined by weighing things has gradually come to be regarded as the supreme principle and ex- treme limit of knowledge. The “inborn spirits’ that held sway in nature and produced the indestructible qualities have themselves become bits of matter which can be caught and imprisoned in test tubes and retorts. I do not deny that modern chemistry has enriched us with many facts, although it is regrettable that the new world was not opened up to us from the outset by a superior insight. It is ridiculous to imagine that a theory has been established by stringing facts together, linked only by meaningless terms, such as matter, attraction, etc., at a time when such concepts as quality, chemical synthesis, analysis, etc., had not begun to be grasped. It may be advantageous to separate chemistry from physics, but then chemistry must be looked upon as a merely experimental art with no pretension to science. The construction of chemical phenomena is not the task of a special science, but of the science of nature as a whole, which does not treat these phenomena as subject to laws of their own outside the context of the whole, but as particular manifestations of the universal life of nature. The universal dynamic process, insofar as it affects the earth as a whole and the cosmic system, is the object of meteorology in the broadest sense, which is part of physical astronomy, for the variations of the earth as a whole can be fully understood only if they are related to the cosmic system.On the Study of Physics and Chemistry 133 As for mechanics, which has largely become a part of physics, it belongs to applied mathematics, but its fun- damental forms, which are the forms of the dynamic process expressed as purely objective, as though lifeless, are taken from physics. Physics in the usual sense of an independent disci- pline is confined to the sphere of the general opposition between light and matter or gravity. The absolute sci- ence of nature deals both with the physical phenomena in the above sense and the higher phenomena of the or- ganic world in whose products the entire process by which the subject becomes object is manifested simul- taneously in its two aspects.