Chapter 1
Preface to The First Edition
From the World’s Soul
What the intention of this essay is, and why it bears this inscription on the forehead, will
the reader find out if he has read enough or curiosity enough to read the whole thing.
Only over two points does the author need to explain himself in advance, so that this attempt will
not be received with prejudice.
The first is that no artificial unity of principles is sought or intended in this document.
The consideration of the general changes of nature, as well as the progress and existence of the
organic world, leads the naturalist to a communal principle, which, between inorganic and
organic nature, contains the first cause of all changes in that and the ultimate ground of all
activity in it it is present everywhere, is nowhere, and because it is all, cannot be definite or
particular, for which reason the language has no actual designation, and whose idea is the oldest
philosophy (which, after having completed its cycle, the ours gradually returns), only in poetic
ideas has handed down to us.
But the unity of the principles does not satisfy, if it does not return to itself through an
infinite variety of individual effects. - I hate nothing more than that mindless endeavor to destroy
the multiplicity of the causes of nature by invented identities. I see that nature pleases only in the
greatest wealth of forms, and that (according to the words of a great poet), even in the dead
spaces of decomposition, arbitrariness pleases itself. The One Law of Gravity, to which the most
mysterious phenomena of the heavens are at last attributed, not only condones, but even causes
the world bodies to disturb each other in their course, and so that in the most perfect order of the
sky the seemingly greatest disorder reigns. Thus nature has described the vast space which she
has enclosed with eternal and immutable laws, far enough to enchant the human mind with a
semblance of lawlessness.
As soon as only our consideration of the idea of nature as a whole is raised, the contrast
between mechanism and organism, which has held back the advances of natural science long
enough, and which might also be repugnant to our enterprise, disappears.
It is an old delusion that organization and life are inexplicable from natural principles. - If
so much is to be said: the first origin of organic nature is physically inscrutable, this unproven
assertion serves nothing but quell the investigator's courage. It is at least permissible to oppose a
bold assertion with another equally bold, and so science does not get away from it. It would at
least be one step to that explanation if one could show that the sequence of stages of all organic
beings has been formed by the gradual development of one and the same organization. - That our
experience has taught no transformation of nature, no transition of one form or species into the
other (though the metamorphoses of some insects, and, if every bud is a new individual, also the
metamorphoses of plants as analogous phenomena are at least quoted can) - is no proof against
that possibility; for, a defender of them might answer, the changes to which organic nature, as
well as the organic, is subject, may take place in everlasting periods (until a general stagnation of
the organic world comes to pass) for which our little periods ( which are determined by the
circulation of the earth around the sun) do not give any measure, and which are so great that so
far no experience has experienced the course of one of them. But, let us abandon these
possibilities and see what is really true or false in that opposition between mechanism and
organism in order to determine the limit within which our explanation of nature must hold itself
most secure.
What is that mechanism with which, as with a ghost, you frighten yourself? Is the
mechanism something that exists for itself, and is not it the negative of the organism itself?
Should the organism not be earlier than the mechanism, the positive earlier than the negative? If
the negative presupposes the positive, not the reverse of that, then our philosophy cannot proceed
from the mechanism (as the negative), but must proceed from the organism (as the positive), and
so, of course, it can be explained so little from that that, on the contrary, it can only be explained
from that. - Not where no mechanism is, is organism, but conversely, where no organism is, is
mechanism.
Organization is nothing else to me than the stopped stream of causes and effects. Only
where nature has not inhibited this current does it flow forward (in a straight line). Where she
inhibits him, he returns (in a circular line) to himself. Not all succession of causes and effects is
excluded by the concept of the organism; This term denotes only a succession that, within certain
limits, flows back into itself.
The fact that the original limit of the mechanism can no longer be empirically explained,
but only postulated, will be shown by induction itself; but it is philosophical to prove that, since
the world is infinite only in its finite state, and an unlimited mechanism would destroy itself, the
general mechanism must also be infinitely retarded, and there will be so many individual, special
worlds. when there are spheres within which the general mechanism returns to itself, then in the
end the world - an organization, and a general organism itself is the condition (and hence the
positive) of the mechanism.
Viewed from this height, the successive successions of causes and effects (which deceive
us with the appearance of mechanism) disappear as infinitesimally small straight lines in the
general circle of the organism in which the world itself proceeds.
What this philosophy has taught me, that the positive principles of the organism and mechanism
are the same, I have tried to prove in the following writing from experience-by the fact that the
general changes of nature (of which even the existence of the organic world depends) last to the
same first hypothesis, from which the general presupposition of naturalists long ago made the
explanation of organic nature dependent. The following treatise, therefore, is divided into two
parts, of which the first undertakes the power of nature, which reveals itself in the general
changes, the other seeks the positive principle of organization and life, and whose common result
is that one and the same principle the inorganic and organic nature connects.
The incompleteness of our knowledge of the first causes (such as electricity), the
atomistic concepts which were in the way here and there (eg in the doctrine of heat), finally the
poverty of prevailing modes of thinking about many objects of physics (eg the meteorological
phenomena ), urged me in the first section to some special discussions, soon to mislead - to
discussions, which scattered the light, which I wished to spread about the whole, too much on
individual objects, so that in the end it was in a common Could regain focus. The farther the sphere of investigation is described, the more one sees the inadequacy and
the meagerness of the experiences that so far fall within their reach, and so few will feel the
imperfection of this experiment deeper or more vividly than the entrepreneur himself.
*
N. S. This work is not to be regarded as a continuation of my ideas for a philosophy of
nature. I will not continue it until I find myself able to conclude the whole thing with a scientific
physiology that can only round off the whole. For the time being, I considered it meritorious to
venture anything in this science, so that at least the acumen of others could be exerted on the
discovery and refutation of error. But I must wish that readers and judges of this treatise are
acquainted with the ideas which are presented in that Scripture. The power to accept all positive
natural principles as originally homogeneous can only be deduced philosophically. Without this
assumption (I assume that one knows what an assumption is for the purpose of a possible
construction) it is impossible to understand the first concepts of physics, e.g. the thermodynamic,
to construct. The idealism, which philosophy gradually introduces into all sciences (in
mathematics it has long since become dominant, especially since Leibniz and Newton), seems to
a few understandable. For example, the concept of an effect in the distance, which many still
encounter, is entirely based on the idealistic conception of space; for, according to this, two
bodies at the greatest distance from each other as touching, and conversely, bodies which
(according to the common conception) really touch, can be imagined as interacting from a
distance. - It is very true that a body works only where it is, but it is equally true that it is only
there where it works, and with this sentence the last parapet of atomistic philosophy is exceeded.
- I have to abstain from giving more examples here.
Preface to the Second Edition
If at the end of the preface to the first edition the author had to acknowledge the poverty
of the then-known experiences with regard to what he wished to see in the physical eye, then it is
no less fitting that the wonderful hopes which he had. In 1798, most of the scholarly world at that
time had thought of folly, grateful acknowledgment of not only fulfilling, but surpassing,
expansion of the sphere of experience, which is chiefly due to the persecution of a great
phenomenon.
In the new revision of this writing many forgotten germs have become visible again,
which has since been unfolded. By this remark, a repeated edition of this document seemed to be
more justified, and the author may well say that for him, by mentioning Winterl, the sincere and
profound-minded researcher, and the opinion of their agreement with his, on quite another
Because of found results, which he expresses, he has acquired a new value.
May such a one also grow for the public by the addition of the treatise mentioned on the
title. We can give it as a mere reprint of the most general principles of that doctrine, which, while
under the name of natural philosophy has received a very rapid spread, but has been very little
recognized in its essence. This essay is written, not merely to read, but to study; The abridged
and the brief description may serve to prevent at least those who cannot do the latter. If they
notice the word band, which the author uses, it is to be wished that they do not confuse it with
Winter's expression and infer from it an equality of both views in their own way; because the
interesting parallelism that can really be exhibited here is not there for them, and would be
difficult to understand.
Chapter 2
Overview
Treatise on the relationship between the real and the ideal in nature
About the first force of nature.
The dualism in nature leads to an organizing principle = world soul
The positive principle = first force of nature is the immediate object of the higher natural
doctrine.
The phenomenon of this principle is a matter.
Materiality of light. The light as a phenomenon of a development.
The general duplicity of matter (whose presupposition is a general identity). - Concluding
sentences.
I. First stage of the unfolding of the duplicity of light, or: What phenomena does the light
show on the surface of the body?
II. What effect does the light have on the body itself?
A. The negative matter of light shows up
1) on the slow warming of the transparent body
2) on the deoxidizing effect of light
3) the rapid warming of the dark body
B. Theory of warming (the light, losing its negative matter, connects to another
principle, but only at the moment of conflict)
C. Result: the light is the first principle of all nature (and in it the first beginning of
the general dualism of nature)
D. Construction of the terms of heat theory
1) difference of absolute heat and specific heat. Term of thermometric heat
2) Explanation of the absolute heat
3) The laws according to which the absolute and the specific heat of the body are
mutually determined
Term of heat capacity of a body.
4) Construction of the burning
5) Term of heat conductor. Difference in quantitative and qualitative capacity.
6) Result: in every body, a principle of heat matter is originally related
7) Explanation of the different degrees of flammability of the body
III. The dualism of the air types
1) Exposure of this dualism
2) refutation of the feasible view
3) Proof of the nitrogen air as a special being
IV. Revelation of the higher dualism in electricity
1) The specific ratio of - and + force
2) Explanation of the interrelationship of the forces as a general law. Related to the
law of gravitation
3) Law of the relationship of both electricity
4) The specific nature of electric matter something special (regardless of the ratio of
the two electricity) to investigate
5) The difference of the two electricity lies in their ponderable bases. Investigation
on the ponderable basis of electrical matter
6) Electrifying a higher nature operation than the oxidation processes
7) Importance of a theory of electricity for meteorology. Proof of the connection
between the generation of electricity and the nature of the atmosphere
V. The Polarity in the Earth's Atmosphere
a) The positive principle
b) The negative principle
c) Possibility of further matter outside the sphere of the earth
d) Possible influence of higher (immaterial) forces on our atmosphere. Criticism of
ordinary meteorological terms. Hypothesis explaining the barometric changes
VI. Definition of the concept of polarity
1) Relationship of polarity (as a narrower sphere) to general dualism. Explanation of
the electrical polarity (of tourmaline) from the non-uniform excitability of heat
2) What follows from this (the warmth of mediating in dualism)
3) Same cause of the excitability of the magnetic (as the electrical) polarity
4) Hence also the same kind of distortion (by the mechanism). Further conclusions
regarding magnetism
5) The magnetic force is not absolutely inner, a principle that is beyond the magnet
6) Further determination of this principle
7) Priority of the magnetic force before the electric
8) Miscellaneous Relationship of the body to magnetism
9) Applying these ideas to the polarity of the earth
10) Result: the law of polarity a universal world law
About the Origin of The General Organism
I. The most original contrast between plant and animal
II. From the opposite principles of animal life
A. The reason of life not only in animal matter
B. The cause of life is just as little outside of animal matter
C. The reason of life is in opposite principles (one except the individual and one in the
individual). - Corollaria
1) The positive principle is the same in all beings, the negative is different: in which
2) Association of the previous systems of physiology
3) Distinction of the active and passive organs
III. From the negative conditions of the life process
1) Necessary requirement of a permanent antagonism of negative principles - in the
plant
2) in the animal. Based on the process itself
3) on the constant disturbance and
4) the constant restoration of (dynamic) equilibrium
5) The (random) product of the process
A. Animal matter and its organization
Additions:
1. The indestructibility of the organization or the individuality in the product
2. The concept of infinite individualization
3. The law of individualization
Proof of a higher absolute cause of life.
4. The self-regeneration of the organ
5. The resistance of the organism
B. The union of freedom and (blind) regularity in the organization of the body
1. The education instinct. This presupposes
2. a first cause of the organization
3.-fifth Why the instinct for education is not explanatory reason of the
organization
C. The constant individualization of matter
1st-4th Growth and reproduction and their relationship to individualization
5. Gradualness of development
6. The separation of the sexes last step to individualization
6) The transition moment in the process - coagulation
7) The nutritional process
8) The Oxydations- a stable Deoxidation process accordingly
9) -10) Stability of the deoxidation process
11) Continuity of the oxidation process
IV. Of the positive cause of life
1) The circulation of animal fluids
2) Concept of irritability
3) Irritability in common. Product of opposite principles
4) How these principles affect irritability
5) Cause of irritability. Contrast of irritability and sensitivity.
6) Conclusion: necessity of a natural principle (all functions of the animal process
branches - phenomena - of the same)
7) Determination of this natural principle:
a) it is not a force again;
b) it is = communal soul of nature.