Chapter 5

[1]The list is instructive because it shows clearly that the names first in the hearts of their countrymen are those who have become eminent in science and letters or have done signal service in the cause of the republic. The leading names are as follows: 1, Pasteur (receiving 1,338,425 votes); 2, Victor Hugo (1,227,103); 3, Gambetta (1,155,672); 4, Napoleon Bonaparte (1,118,034); 5, Thiers (1,039,453); 6, Lazare Carnot, organizer of the republican army of the Revolution; 7, Pierre Curie, discoverer of radium; 8, Alexandre Dumas,père; 9, Dr. Roux, inventor of the diphtheritic serum; 10, Parmentier, introducer of the potato into France; 11, Ampère, father of dynamic electricity; 12, Brazza, who secured the Kongo region for France; 13, Zola, novelist and defender of Dreyfus; 14, Lamartine, republican poet; 15, Arago, astronomer and physicist; 16, Sarah Bernhardt, actress; 17, Premier Waldeck-Rousseau; 18, Marshal MacMahon; 19, President Carnot; 20, Chevreul, chemist; 21, Chateaubriand; 22, Ferdinand de Lesseps, constructor of the Suez Canal and projector of the Panama; 23, Michelet; 24, Jacquard, inventor of the pattern loom; 25, Jules Verne; 26, President Loubet; 27, Deufert-Rochereau, defender of Belfort.

[2]He might add to his notable examples of persons addicted to the use of curdled milk the case of Tze-Hsi, the Dowager Empress of China, who at the age of seventy-four had energy enough to change her own mind and revolutionize the government of four hundred million people.

[3]See "Les Microbes lactiques et leur utilité pour la santé" inLa Revue,1901, p. 145. A full discussion of the subject of fermented milks with methods for their preparation in the household may be found in a volume by L. M. Douglas, recently published under the sensational title of "The Bacillus of Long Life" (Putnams).

[4]"The Prolongation of Life", p. 159.

Maeterlinck expresses his idea of happiness through the symbol of the Blue Bird. Ostwald expresses his by

G = E² - W²

Poets and scientists both are necessarily symbolists. The apparent conflict between them is chiefly a difference of taste as to the choice of symbols, for both stand together in opposition to the great mass of near-sighted humanity, those who live only in the concrete, too absorbed in the consideration of particulars to discover for themselves the One in the Many. The most conspicuous difference between the symbolism of poetry and that of science is that the former is old and the latter new. The poet prefers to go to antiquity for symbols, bringing down from the attic to the living-room some metaphorical heirloom, enriched by the associations of generations and carrying with it a penumbra of indefinable suggestions, which makes it appear to mean more than it does. So Maeterlinck chooses for his fairy play "The Blue Bird", which had lived in folk lore for countless ages. But the scientist prefers to invent a new symbol for the occasion in order to get something that shall convey neither more nor less meaning than what he himself puts into it at the time. Poets and artists of all sorts get credit for greater perspicacity and prophetic power than they deserve, by reason of later generations reading into their sayings much more meaning than was ever in the mind of the author. This unearned increment of reputation, compounded annually, is all that keeps some ancient authors alive nowadays. But the man of science disdains such support and is careful to define his terms so that posterity may give him no more credit than he thinks he has earned by his own exertions.

The scientific symbolism is not only more exact than the poetic, but it is also more practical. Doubtless "The Blue Bird" of Maurice Maeterlinck and "The Blue Flower" of Henry Van Dyke have contributed to happiness as well as stood for it, but they are not of much service in showing which of two courses in any dilemma will lead to it. The unpoetical reader might suppose that to be blue was to be happy. Ostwald, however, insists that his formula is not a mere mathematical jest, but applicable to practical affairs, and like a true physician he has tried it on himself and knows that it works. He tells us that he solved one of the most difficult problems of his life by its aid, as, for example, when at the age of fifty-three the question arose whether he should remain professor of chemistry in Leipzig University or retire to his country place at Gross-Bothen to take up the new profession of "practical idealist"?

An interpretation of Ostwald's formula for happiness,

G = E² - W²

will enable the reader to try it for himself.Gstands for happiness (Glück). This, according to the theory of energetics, is dependent upon the amount of energy expended, might in fact be measured by the amount of carbon dioxid produced by conscious activity if we could separate this from the unconscious physiological processes of the body. Part of this Energy is expended in agreeable ways; let that be represented byE. But there is always another part of conscious activity which is unpleasant, such as painful feelings, disagreeable thoughts, unwilling duties; that may be represented byW(widerwillig).

The second term (E²—W²) of the equation may be resolved into the two factorsE+WandE - W, and increase of either will tend to increase the amount of happiness. The way of the strenuous life is to increase the first (E+W), the total expenditure of energy; that is, to exert one's self to the utmost in desired directions, even though opposition and anxieties increase also; to bring up the health to its highest point that the supply of chemical energy may not fail; to cut down as much as possible on sleep, for that is the time when bothEandWsink to zero. This is what Ostwald calls Hero-happiness (Heldenglück).

But men of more timid temperament prefer to devote their attention to the other factor (E-W), because herein lies the danger, not merely of no happiness (whenG= 0), but of unhappiness, forGbecomes a minus quantity whenWis greater thanE. They strive rather to reduceW, the unpleasant part of life, than to increaseE, the pleasant. To avoid risks, to curb ambition, to limit desires, to curtail expenditure, to seek contentment rather than delight—this is the way of the simple life and leads to Hut-happiness (Hüttenglück). This may indeed attain the same result, give an equal value for G, but the happiness so reached is very different in kind, though equivalent in degree, to that for which strive men of the type of Napoleon, Edison, and Roosevelt. The search for happiness by limitation instead of expansion leads at its extreme to stoicism, to asceticism, to nirvana, to the state of mind of Diogenes, who threw away his sole utensil, the cup, when he saw a man drink out of his hand.

Many moralists before Ostwald have attempted to put this idea into semi-mathematical form, generally with the object of advising the seeker after happiness to take the lower and smoother road. Carlyle says in "Sartor Resartus":

"The Fraction of Life can be increased in value, not so much by increasing your Numerator as by lessening your Denominator. Nay, unless my Algebra deceive me, Unity itself divided by Zero will give Infinity. Make thy claim of wages a zero, then; thou hast the world at thy feet. Well did the Wisest of our time write 'It is only with Renunciation that Life, properly speaking, can be said to begin.'" James, in his "Principles of Psychology", expresses it as follows:

SuccessSelf-esteem = —————Pretensions.

That is, our self-esteem is determined by the ratio of our actualities to our supposed potentialities. And he suggests that some Bostonians "would be happier men and women to-day if they could once for all abandon the notion of keeping up a Musical Self and without shame let people hear them call a symphony a nuisance"?

William Winter puts the thought in rhyme:

"I have set my heart on nothing, you seeAnd so the world goes well with me."

One is irresistibly impelled to quote Johnson's remark:

"Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equallysatisfied, but not equallyhappy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A peasant has not capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher."

Boswell tags this in his usual style with the observation that this very question was "very happily illustrated" by the Reverend Mr. Robert Brown at Utrecht, who said that "a small drinking glass and a very large one may be equally full, but the large one holds more than the small."

Ostwald applies his formula to James's "Varieties of Religious Experience", and shows that the convert leaves the mourner's bench at the moment when the factor (E-W) changes its sign from minus to plus. (HereWapparently stands for the devil.) The equation also serves him as an argument against the use of alcohol and other narcotics, which, though they temporarily reduceWby sinking all unpleasantnesses below the threshold of consciousness, are likely to make happiness a minus quantity. Wealth, being the most compact and convenient form of energy, may serve to increaseEor diminishW, but not in proportion to its amount. Dramatic criticism may even be made mathematical. Jaques has a largeW; Rosalind has a largeE; put them together and you have "As You Like It."

But I should not devote so much space to what is merely an extreme and, some would say, an extravagant application of Ostwald's philosophy.[1]It is, however, a characteristic example of his mode of thought and may serve as well as any other to introduce the reader to his fundamental theory of energetics, which formed the leading principle of his chemical work, and which he has now carried over into the fields of philosophy and sociology.

It is not necessary to explain the modern conception of energy, for we all learned about it in our school days, and here we need only have in mind its two fundamental laws. The first is the law of the conservation of energy, discovered by Mayer, which states that the amount of energy remains unchanged whatever its transformations. To take a familiar example, when we buy coal, we are really buying chemical energy, not carbon. When we burn it, we let the carbon go off up the chimney, but the heat energy we keep as completely as possible, and by means of a boiler transform it into the expansive energy of steam, which is converted into the motion energy of piston rod and wheel, and when connected with a dynamo may become electrical energy. The electrical energy we can conduct by a wire into our homes and there convert it into the light energy of an incandescent bulb, the heat energy of an electric griddle, or the motion energy of a fan or carpet sweeper. That is, whenever any kind of energy disappears, some other kind of energy crops up somewhere in exactly equivalent amount. In any experiment where they can be measured, the income and outgo of energy will be found to balance exactly, just like a bookkeeper's ledger.

But here is another thing to consider. The fact that a trial balance comes out even does not prove that the concern is not losing money, and we see the same thing in the energy business. In the series of transformations we have followed above, from the coal of the power house to the utensils of the household, there is leakage all along the line, a little lost in friction and radiated heat in each of the machines, and a big waste, some eighty-five per cent, in the steam engine. Ostwald uses the ingenious illustration of a traveler who goes through Europe changing his money at every frontier, and losing a little each time through the changer's discount. A good money changer is one who is satisfied with a moderate commission. A good machine is one that gives back to us almost as much as we give it. But there is none perfect, no, not one.

This is the second fundamental law of thermodynamics,[2]the law of the degradation of energy. For energy has a sort of gravitation of its own. It always wants to run down hill. Heat seeks its level as well as water. If we lay a hot plate, say, a temperature of 100°, on or under a plate at zero, the heat will spread to the cold plate until both are at 50°, disregarding radiation losses. And when they have come to the same temperature, it is impossible to get out of them any further heat movement. "You cannot run the mill with the water that's gone by." You have to have a fall of temperature to run any kind of heat engine. Every machine, every chemical and physical process, every living being, is leaking energy all the time, that is, transforming it into unavailable forms. That is the way we get our living. The sun is dissipating its heat energy throughout space at a great rate. Our allies, the plants, manage to catch a tiny bit of it and store it in starch and oil, but we eat these and send the energy on its way as heat again. The whole universe, regarded as a big machine, is running down like a clock and, it seems, must ultimately come to a stop, unless, indeed, there is a self-winding attachment hidden away in it somewhere, or somebody outside of it all to wind it up occasionally.

This, however, is one of those questions which Ostwald calls "pseudo-problems" and from which he would free us by applying the energetic philosophy. His test is the following: "Suppose the problem solved and assume any one of all possible answers to be correct, we can then investigate what effect this would have on our conduct. If it produces no effect, the problem is thereby indicated to be a pseudo-problem." He takes for example the following:

Did the world have a beginning in time or has it existed from all eternity? By the way of experiment we will assume that it has existed since eternity, and will ask what would change in our conduct by this knowledge? I find, at least for myself, that nothing would change by this knowledge, and just as little if we assume that there was a beginning in time. Hence I must say that even if I positively learn in some way which of the two possibilities is correct, it would be a matter of perfect indifference to me, and this being the case, we have here a pseudo-problem. The significance of this procedure is apparent from the answer to the question as to what we call "correct" or "true." The answer was that which enables us to make accurate predictions. Something that does not allow us to make any prediction whatever is essentially of no interest to us in any way, and there is no need of being concerned about it.—"The Modern Theory of Energetics" (Monist, 1907).

This, of course, is the pragmatic method, and Ostwald acknowledges the relationship by observing: "Energetics coincides with that movement which has originated on philosophical ground and which pursues very similar ends under the name of pragmatism or humanism." The pragmatic mode of thinking is practically universal among scientific men, but Ostwald is an extreme pragmatist. Prophecy is the sole aim of science, according to him, and he virtually denies the possibility of applying the terms truth and falsehood, in the strict sense, to the statements of history.[3]

To catch what we can of this stream of energy and to utilize it to the best advantage, is the aim of human endeavor, the measure of civilization. This is the function of the will in the individual and the duty of the leaders of men. Wealth in all ages consists essentially of the command of energy, whether counted by slave power, horse power, or kilowatt hours. In order to show how Ostwald's sociology grows out of his physics, let me quote the concluding paragraphs of his little book on "Natural Philosophy":

The objective characteristic of progress consists in improved methods for seizing and utilizing the raw energies of nature for human purposes. Thus it was a cultural act when a primitive man discovered that he could extend the radius of his muscle energy by taking a pole in his hand, and it was another cultural act when a primitive man discovered that by throwing a stone he could send his muscle energy a distance of many meters to the desired point. The effect of the knife, the spear, the arrow, and of all the other primitive implements can be called in. each case a purposive transformation of energy. And at the other end of the scale of civilization the most abstract scientific discovery, by reason of its generalization and simplification, signifies a corresponding economy of energy for all the coming generations that may have anything to do with the matter. Thus, in fact, the concept of progress as here defined embraces the entire sweep of human endeavor for perfection, or the entire field of culture, and at the same time it shows the great scientific value of the concept of energy.If we consider further that, according to the second fundamental principle, the free energy accessible to us can only decrease, but not increase, while the number of men whose existence depends directly on the consumption of a due amount of free energy is constantly on the increase, then we at once see the objective necessity of the development of civilization in that sense. His foresight puts man in a position to act culturally. But if we examine our present social order from this point of view, we realize with horror how barbarous it still is. Not only do murder and war destroy cultural values without substituting others in their place, not only do the countless conflicts which take place between the different nations and political organizations act anticulturally, but so do also the conflicts between the various social classes of one nation, for they destroy quantities of free energy which are thus withdrawn from the total of real cultural values. At present mankind is in a state of development in which progress depends much less upon the leadership of a few distinguished individuals than upon the collective labor of all workers. Proof of this is that it is coming to be more and more the fact that great scientific discoveries are made simultaneously by a number of independent investigators—an indication that society creates in several places the individual conditions requisite for such discoveries. Thus we are living at a time when men are gradually approximating one another very closely in their natures, and when the social organization therefore demands and strives for as thorough an equalization as possible in the conditions of existence of all men.

If we consider further that, according to the second fundamental principle, the free energy accessible to us can only decrease, but not increase, while the number of men whose existence depends directly on the consumption of a due amount of free energy is constantly on the increase, then we at once see the objective necessity of the development of civilization in that sense. His foresight puts man in a position to act culturally. But if we examine our present social order from this point of view, we realize with horror how barbarous it still is. Not only do murder and war destroy cultural values without substituting others in their place, not only do the countless conflicts which take place between the different nations and political organizations act anticulturally, but so do also the conflicts between the various social classes of one nation, for they destroy quantities of free energy which are thus withdrawn from the total of real cultural values. At present mankind is in a state of development in which progress depends much less upon the leadership of a few distinguished individuals than upon the collective labor of all workers. Proof of this is that it is coming to be more and more the fact that great scientific discoveries are made simultaneously by a number of independent investigators—an indication that society creates in several places the individual conditions requisite for such discoveries. Thus we are living at a time when men are gradually approximating one another very closely in their natures, and when the social organization therefore demands and strives for as thorough an equalization as possible in the conditions of existence of all men.

From the same fundamental conception Ostwald derives his system of ethics, which he sums up in "the energetic imperative":[4]So act that the crude energy is transformed into the higher with the least possible loss. This forms the text of several of his lay sermons such as the one on "Efficiency."[5]Efficiency, that is, the ratio of work to means, of accomplishment to opportunity, can be made the measure of a man as well as of a machine, since Ostwald includes all thoughts and feelings as forms of energy. This scientific conception and ideal of efficiency, developed in the laboratory, was first introduced into the shop, thence it has crept into business management, and has even made its unwelcome appearance in university administration. It cannot be much longer kept out from the capitol, the church, and the home. It is, in fact, the contribution to our civilization by the fourth and newest of the learned professions, that of the engineer. He it is who has started us all wondering how much of what we daily do pays us in any coin, has made us anxious to see some relation between effort and result, has rendered us impatient of unnecessary delay, friction, lost motion, wasted work, unutilized material, and retarded rewards.

To distinguish low and high forms of energy, says Ostwald, we should consider their relative importance for human purposes. Thus bread must be regarded as containing a higher form of chemical energy than wood, although they are very similar in chemical composition and produce about the same number of calories of heat on consumption.

Kant's categorical imperative, "So act that your conduct may be taken as a universal law", is, in Ostwald's opinion, neither so comprehensive nor so definite as his energetic imperative, which includes ethical conduct, but is not confined to it. We call one automobile "good" and another "bad" if the former will carry us twice as far as the latter on the same amount of gasoline consumed. A "good" friend is one who helps us in our endeavors through judicious advice and without annoyance, while a "poor" friend only multiplies our difficulties; here again goodness and badness are determined by the ratio of the total energy employed and the results obtained. It is this second principle of thermodynamics, the law of the degradation and dissipation of energy, that prevents us from undoing the past, that gives significance to such phrases as "time flies" and "the world moves." The cosmic process is not a reversible reaction. Nietzsche's nightmare of the eternal recurrence, which drove him insane, would have been dispelled by a knowledge of elementary physics.

The second law is therefore of greater importance to philosophy and sociology than the first, the law of the conservation and transmutation of energy. Ostwald's recognition of its significance gives to his philosophy a character decidedly different from the view dominant in the last century, the mechanistic theory of the universe. It is a curious thing that Haeckel, the biologist, has, by basing his philosophy on the first law, been led to extreme mechanistic views, while Ostwald, the physical chemist, by placing greater emphasis upon the second law, comes to conclusions much better suited to the explanation of vital phenomena.

According to the old mechanistic theory, the world could be reduced to two elements, matter and motion. Everything was held to consist in reality of atoms, in those days generally assumed to be indivisible and eternal. Each atom was at a given instant moving in a certain direction at a certain speed. It followed from this, as was suggested in thePhilosophical Magazinemany years ago, that if each atom should be suddenly stopped and sent going back on its track with the same speed, all events would be reversed and history be repeated backward. If we were watching Waterloo, for example,[6]we should see the dead men rise up one by one, pick up their guns, point them at their enemies, receive into the gunbarrels the gases produced by the explosion of powder, and walk off backward. Napoleon starting as a prisoner on St. Helena would end as Emperor of the French.

We have all of us had this idea pictorially presented to us in moving picture shows when the film is run through the lantern backward and we see apples leaping from the ground and attaching themselves to the limbs of the tree, and swimmers diving up out of the water and lighting on the springboard. In fact, the reversed film of the cinematograph may be regarded as thereductio ad absurdumof the mechanistic hypothesis. We might expect that a piece of music would sound just as well if we put the perforated paper roll into the player piano wrong end first—but somehow it doesn't. We all feel instinctively that there is something ridiculous and impossible about this idea of reversibility when applied to human beings. Even the chemist and the physicist can effect this reversibility only to a limited extent and in special cases, as, for example, when energy is supplied from some external source. A sled can indeed be made to go up hill as well as down, but it is hard work to make it. Wood will burn easily, but no chemist is yet able to get the wood back out of the gases of combustion. The second energy law was taught to us in our infancy by the parable of Humpty-Dumpty.

Bergson bases his theory of the comic[7]upon the idea that the absurdest of all things is to regard a human being as a machine. That the world is, like man, not rightly to be regarded as a machine is the fundamental theme of Bergson's "Creative Evolution", so there is a striking similarity in point of view between Ostwald and Bergson, notwithstanding their diversity of temperament and style. It may be recalled that Bergson also entered into the realm of metaphysics through the door of mathematical physics.

As early as 1895 Ostwald announced "the overthrow of scientific materialism";[8]a startling declaration coming from one of the greatest of chemists at a time when chemistry was almost exclusively absorbed in the transformations of matter and only beginning to recognize the importance of the concomitant transformations of energy. When the chemist had put upon the blackboard the equation of a reaction or the structural formula of a compound, he was apt to think that he had told "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" about it. Against all such crude conceptions Ostwald protested vigorously, preaching a new iconoclasm in the words of the old: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any image or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them." He demanded "a science free from hypotheses"; formulas that should merely state what is known to take place, in the place of mechanical models and misleading visualizations. "Matter", said this professor of the most materialistic of the sciences, "is merely a form of thought", which is the same conclusion that Kant had come to a hundred years before in regard to time and space. But whereas Kant had said: "Give me matter and I will build a world out of it", Ostwald would say: "Away with matter, I will build a world without it."

"The Actual, that is, what acts upon us, is energy alone", but in so speaking Ostwald must not be understood, as he often is, to imply that energy is the sole substance of which the world is composed. Mass is merely one of the two factors which make up the product known as energy. What the common man regards as the attributes of matter, its hardness, heaviness, color, etc., are simply the effects of various forms of energy on his sense organs.

Coal should be sold by calories, not tons. Even the courts, slowest of human institutions to take cognizance of new ideas, have come to the conclusion that energy is an entity, for now they will convict a man for stealing it from a third rail, though perhaps they regard the current as a stream of corpuscles. The unifying value of the energy conception appears when we consider the old riddle of the relation of the mind and body. Between the brain, regarded merely as a collocation of moving molecules, and the mind, regarded merely as a succession of states of consciousness, there is no conceivable connection, and dualism is inevitable. But if we regard both as forms of energy, the difficulty disappears. The "preëstablished harmony" of Leibnitz then becomes the established unity of Ostwald. The idea of energy had its inception in human action, so it is not an alien form of thought. It was borrowed originally from psychology by physics, and there is no impropriety in taking it back.

What we have been calling explanations in physics, and even in psychology, have been for the most part merely mechanical analogies. We have felt that a phenomenon was "explained" when we could make a working model that we could see and handle. A few years ago physicists were explaining electricity by cumbrous mechanisms of cogwheels and water pipes. In recent textbooks this is reversed, and mechanical phenomena are explained by the use of conceptions developed in the study of electricity, such as "potential", "field", and "capacity".

The establishment in 1901 of theAnnalen der Naturphilosophie, by Wilhelm Ostwald, marked the change in the attitude of prominent scientists toward the problems of speculative philosophy. The pendulum was on its swing back from the extreme and intolerant empiricism which has been the prevailing trait of scientific workers for so long.

In its revulsion from the imaginative metaphysics of the ancients and the formal logic of the schoolmen, modern science resolutely turned away from ambitious attempts to solve the riddle of the universe by brilliant guessing and began the patient accumulation and verification of facts and the deduction from them of their simplest and most certain inferences. This task came to be considered as the sole sphere of scientific thought; and there were men who were daring and foolish enough to teach that this was the only method for the advancement of human knowledge. Happily, however, for civilization, scientists did not confine themselves to the method prescribed for them by Bacon and other literary men, and of late years it has become generally recognized that the greatest achievements have been made in quite the opposite way—that is, by projecting the imagination into the unknown and then working up to it. Almost all the best scientific work has been done under the guidance of hypotheses; and purely accidental discoveries have been rare and usually insignificant. In fact, in many branches of science the word invention should be used rather than discovery. The new compound or the new plant exists clearly in the mind's eye of the chemist or the horticulturist before he sets out to produce it.

It was not to be expected that men who had already accomplished more in science in a century than had been done in all preceding time would forever keep their trained imaginations from attacking the deepest problems of life and destiny; and it is no wonder that we find some of our greatest scientists turning their attention toward metaphysics and epistemology. The transfer of Professor Mach from the chair of physics to that of the theory of inductive sciences was symbolic of a mental change which was taking place in many minds.

The removal of the ban against speculative philosophy has obviously its dangers, but they are less than have been attached to this form of thought in the past. That mankind should again go back to the sports of its youth and blow soap bubbles merely to watch in them the iridescent but distorted views of the world would be a sad calamity; but it is not probable that the lesson of a century and a half of patient work will be wholly lost. The dreamer of the future will not dare to build an air castle without at least an option on the site. The danger is not from men of science like Ostwald, Mach, and Poincaré, who are so well ballasted that they can carry more sail than ordinary men, but from those who are less qualified and less cautious. We have never, however, been free from the fancies of this latter class. Nature abhors a vacuum; and if any field of intellect is left empty by the wise but overwary, it will speedily be filled by those who have no fears where they tread. The recrudescence of antiquated superstitions and the rise of freak religions are the natural result of confining scientific thought and criticism to the material and practical. Even the plodding compilator of facts has his metaphysical theories, although he would indignantly deny that anything of the kind could be found about his person. Metaphysics may be ignored, but not dispensed with. In the so-called "common sense" point of view, speculative hypotheses are not excluded, but are unconsciously and uncritically accepted.

Science has evidently been looking on the ground only to be sure of her footing, and now is ready to assert her right to gaze even into the deepest darknesses. No Baconian creed will in the future limit the operations of the intellect. We have no right to call any problem insoluble merely because it has remained unsolved. It may be that as great triumphs will reward the scientific method here as in humbler lines.

In the revolution which has within the last twenty years transformed chemistry from an empirical science based upon material conceptions to a mathematical science based upon energetic conceptions, Ostwald has been a leader. Qualitative and quantitative analysis which had been hardly more systematic and rational than a kitchen recipe book became in his hands a new and delightful study in which even the beginner could use his mind as well as his fingers. Professors of chemistry who had got along happily all their lives with a knowledge of arithmetic as far as and including percentage suddenly found themselves in need of calculus and other things of that sort. Yale graduates who went to the Leipzig laboratory in the nineties to continue their chemistry were set to study the works of Willard Gibbs, whose name they may indeed have seen in the catalogue of their alma mater, but whose acquaintance they were not likely to have made. What was worse, they had to get up their Gibbs in German,[9]since the original papers in the "Transactions of the Connecticut Academy" were not available, and even in English Gibbs is not light reading. It was Ostwald who first recognized Gibbs as "the greatest scientific genius that the United States has so far produced", and made his work known to Europe, where it has served as the guide and inspiration of some of the most fruitful investigations of the last two decades.

This is eminently characteristic of Ostwald. His own researches, great as they are, may without injustice be regarded as of less importance than the unique service he has rendered to his science by the discovery and prompt utilization of original theories and generalizations, whether found in the forgotten files of the journals and transactions, in the papers of his contemporaries or the work of his students. This was a task requiring both genius and generosity. What he did for Gibbs, the American, he did for van't Hoff, the Dutchman, and Arrhenius, the Swede, and many others, living and dead. He has always taken a keen interest in individuals. He is not content with the mere name of a great authority in a footnote. He wants to know what manner of man he was and in what words he first made public his discovery. This led him to cultivate the neglected field of chemical history and biography. Most chemists knew nothing at first hand of the work of the men they glibly referred to in their lectures, Avogadro, Bunsen, Dalton, Berzelius, etc. Nor could they have easily become acquainted with them if they had cared to, for the original papers were often inaccessible. So Ostwald started in 1889 his series of "The Classics of the Exact Sciences", reprinting important papers with notes.

In 1887, when few people knew that there was such a thing as physical chemistry, he founded a journal for it, theZeitschrift für physikalische Chemie, now in its eighty-first volume, and not room enough yet in its two thousand three hundred pages a year to record the progress of the science. In 1902, when most scientists scoffed at the idea of philosophy, he started another venture equally bold, theAnnalen der Naturphilosophie. During this period of sixteen years his literary output, not counting the two periodicals and the eighteen volumes of the "Classics of the Exact Sciences", already mentioned, included twenty-two books of 15,850 pages altogether; 120 papers making original contributions to chemical science comprising 1630 pages; addresses and dissertations amounting to 300 pages; and some 3880 abstracts and 920 book reviews in his journals. Every chemical library has upon its shelves (the plural is usually necessary) "the big Ostwald," the "Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Chemie", the size of a cyclopedia, with the dates of its volumes strung along through the eighties and nineties, though "the little Ostwald", the "Grundriss der allgemeinen Chemie", shows more wear on the binding. And all that, it must be remembered, represents only one side of the activity of this extraordinary man, for during the period of this enormous literary production he was professor of chemistry at the University of Leipzig and director of one of the busiest research laboratories in the world.

We find in our American universities nowadays many men who are so absorbed in their investigations that they refuse to consider either the philosophical or the practical aspects of their science, and they resent as an insult any demands made upon their time by the outside world. Ostwald has never been so busy as that. Notwithstanding the fact that he has carried on researches in pure science which have obtained for him the Nobel prize, he has not disdained to print letters to painters on the use of pigments and to lecture to housewives on the chemistry of cooking, as well as to bring his knowledge of science to bear upon the educational, social, and religious questions discussed in the periodicals of the day.

When we inquire why no American chemist has yet been honored by a Nobel medal, we are apt to be told that laboratory facilities in this country are too inadequate. Ostwald has never been hindered by this obstacle; not in Riga, where he was his own mechanic and glass blower, equipping the laboratory with home-made burettes, induction coils, and galvanometers; not in Leipzig, where he worked under conditions that have been described as follows:[10]

"The Leipzig laboratory, in which he worked until 1897, was situated in the Landwirtschaftliche Institut, an old pile originally devoted to agricultural chemistry, and in every way unfitted for the carrying on of those delicate experiments which brought Ostwald to the forefront of scientific workers. Research was carried on under countless difficulties; the light was bad, the rooms unventilated, the heating effected by means of stoves difficult to regulate and producing dust which caused much injury to the finer instruments; no precautions had been taken in laying the foundations to insure the deadening of vibrations; thus many experiments were ruined; the lack of space precluded the use of telescopes for reading scales, and altogether it would have been difficult to construct a laboratory worse adapted for physico-chemical investigations."

In one respect, it must be said, the current of scientific thought has gone quite counter to Ostwald's views. The atomic theory, which he was desirous of doing away with, has become substantiated and extended. The kinetic theory of gases has not been displaced by his concept of "volume-energy", and now the motion of the molecules has been made visible by the ultra-microscope, and we hear talk of the "atomic theory of electricity", the "corpuscular conception of light", and the "granular nature of energy." Even time and space show a tendency to disintegrate and become discrete. But the tide may turn at any moment, and Ostwald's conceptions once more become fashionable in scientific circles.

As I say, Ostwald does not appear to be a busy man. Would a busy man take the heart out of a fair summer day to devote himself to the entertainment of a wandering American journalist? If I had not known that he was an editor of two periodicals and a leader in some of the most important movements of the day, I might have supposed him a mere gentleman of leisure, as he sat with me on the porch of his country home, willing to talk freely on any topic I suggested, willing even to listen when I wanted to talk, with never a longing look through his study door at the heavily laden desk and silent typewriter. A big man, as well as a great man, is Ostwald; genial in manner, direct of speech. His bushy blond beard has mostly lost the color it had when first I saw him in 1904 at the St. Louis Congress of Arts and Sciences, and his hair is quite white and now cut short, bristling an inch or two all over his head. He would be recognized as a German professor by his look and bearing, if he were seen anywhere on the globe, yet he could not be called a type specimen, for he is free from the vices to which the average German professor is most addicted, the love of beer, tobacco, and Latin. Also, he hates dueling, although recognizing that it is not so dangerous as American football.[11]

But unconventional as his views may appear, it must not be thought that Ostwald is a faddist. His is a reasoned radicalism, originating not in mere neophilism or iconoclasm, but in the application of scientific principles to the problems of daily life. What distinguishes Ostwald from most other philosophers is his willingness to put his principles to the test of experience by striving to live up to them.

Our conversation was in English necessarily, for though I had taken my first German lessons from Ostwald over twenty years before—using his "Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Chemie" as a primer, instead of Grimm's "Märchen"—he had not been at hand to teach me to speak it. Ostwald, however, speaks English as readily as he does German—or French or Ido. His biographer relates that, when he was learning English in the RigaGymnasiumhe had great difficulty in pronouncing "the", until he discovered that he could get the sound by filling his mouth withZwieback; on the same principle, I suppose, as Demosthenes used pebbles. Now, however, he manages histh'sperfectly, and I don't think he hadZwiebackin his mouth when he talked with me.

His language was particularly fluent and forcible when he came to discuss the question of teaching languages. The chief point in his indictment of the GermanGymnasium, or secondary school, is the excessive time and excessive honor given to linguistics. He regards the new scientific school (Realschule) as almost as bad as the classicalGymnasiumin this respect, for modern languages are there taught in much the same way as the ancient. The absorption of the student's attention during the impressionable years of his youth in the idiosyncrasies of German grammar, or the monstrosities of English spelling, does not cultivate, but actually impairs, the power of logical and original thinking. Ostwald ascribes Nietzsche's perverted ideas, his misconception of the struggle for existence and his hatred of the common people, to his training in classical philology. He brings forward as a cause of the failure of Austria-Hungary to produce its proportional share of great men, the linguistic struggle which absorbs the energy of its people. The barrier of local language is one of the causes of international friction and lost motion which grieves the mind of a physicist. As a means of overcoming this friction—a linguistic lubricating oil, as it were—he favors the formation of an international auxiliary language, especially for scientific and commercial purposes.[12]I suppose one reason why he thinks it possible to construct an artificial world language is because he has seen it done. The rapid expansion of the science of organic chemistry within the present generation has necessitated the invention, as the need for them arose, of more new words than Shakespeare's vocabulary contained. Some of these are cumbrous, it is true, rather formulas than words, but remarkable for their succinct significance and are largely common to all languages. Ostwald has recently constructed a complete new nomenclature of chemistry in Ido and proposes soon to use it for all the abstracts in hisZeitschrift für physikalische Chemie, so that the student, after a few hours spent in learning Ido, will have free access to all the literature of this science. Professor Ostwald assured me that he had tried putting his philosophy into the new language and found it of great benefit in giving clarity and definiteness to his thought. The adoption of an international language he regards as an important part of the peace movement in which he is now actively engaged. I asked him if he expected that arbitration treaties would put an end to war, and he explained that they would act like a block signal system on a railroad, not always preventing the disaster of war, but lessening the chances of it.

Ido is a simplified form of Esperanto, originating in the refusal of Dr. Zamenhof to allow any reforms in the language he had invented. It drops the accented letters and accusative form of Esperanto and utilizes a larger proportion of romance roots common to all European languages. The official organs areProgreso(Paris: 3 Rue le Gof) andThe International Language(London: 32 Cleveland Square). Ostwald's new chemical nomenclature began in the May, 1910, number ofProgreso. The volume by Ostwald, Jespersen, and three other professors entitled "International Language and Science" (London: Constable, 1910), contains an interesting test of the capabilities of the new language, the translation into Ido and back again into English by another person of a page of James's psychology with almost no loss in the process. A page of "Das Monistische Jahrhundert" appears each week in Ido.

In order to give effect to practical measures for breaking down the barriers between nations, he has established "An International Institute for the Organization of Intellectual Labor" known asDie Brücke, "The Bridge", or, as he would prefer to put it in Ido,La Ponto. This aims to serve the purpose of a world clearing house of information and a channel of intercourse for all forms of culture. A plan for a uniform system of page sizes for books and periodicals, "the hypotenuse oblong", has been here brought forward and is discussed inPrinting Art, April and May, 1911, July, 1912.

So Ostwald, having won the Nobel chemistry prize in 1909, is in a fair way to become in time eligible for the Nobel peace prize. It is in fact characteristic of the man that, having achieved success in one field of human endeavor, he should turn his attention to another. It is part of his theory of the art of life. I was curious to know why he had left Leipzig and chemistry for Gross-Bothen and philosophy, had abandoned one of the greatest of universities and the most popular of the sciences for the Saxon village and a field of thought reputed as unproductive. He explained to me that in early years he had a leaning toward philosophy, but in those days the subject was looked upon with disfavor. Now things have changed. People realize that it is necessary to take a wide as well as a close view. Civilization advances by alternating periods of specialization and generalization. We are now entering upon the second phase.

Then, too, he had come to the conclusion from his study of great scientists that the men who had accomplished most through the prolongation of their productive period had done so by changing their occupation two or three times in the course of their lifetime; for example, Helmholtz, who devoted the first half of his adult life to physiology and medicine and the last to physics, being equally eminent in each; and Humboldt, who kept up his work to the close of his ninety years by shifting from one field of science to another. Having come to this conclusion, Ostwald, as an experimental scientist, was obliged to try it upon himself. The success of the experiment indicates that rotation of crops is a good plan in menticulture as well as agriculture.

He carries out the same principle in his daily life. When tired with philosophizing, he turns to painting. This he finds relieves the mind better than anything else, for it sends the blood to another side of the brain, while if he tries to secure rest by lying down, the brain goes on working in the same old lines. This absorption in artistic effort he has used in his Harvard lecture on "Individuality and Immortality", when he is arguing that the highest happiness is found rather in the obliteration of individuality than its persistence. This conclusion is familiar to us as that of the mystics, but Ostwald reaches it characteristically by another way, the second law of energetics. After speaking of the tendency of liquids and of heat toward diffusion and consequent loss of identity, he applies the principle to society and psychology. The passage is worth quoting because it is practically a direct contradiction of Spencer's fundamental theory that evolution is a progress from homogeneity to heterogeneity, both for matter and for energy. The difference results, I think, chiefly from the fact that Spencer's attention was fixed upon the first law, that of the conservation of energy, for the importance of the second law, that of the dissipation of energy, was not recognized till long afterward.[13]The reader will notice that the second law is decidedly democratic in its implications.

It is a strange thing indeed that by merely being associated with another thing of the same kind identity is lost. And still more strange is the fact that every being of this kind seems driven by an irresistible impulse to seek every occasion for losing its identity. Every known physical fact leads to the conclusion that diffusion, or a homogeneous distribution, of energy is the general aim of all happenings. No change whatever seems to have occurred, and probably none ever will occur, resulting in a concentration greater than the corresponding dissipation of energy. A partial concentration may be brought about in a system, but only at the expense of a greater dissipation, and the sum total is always an increase in dissipation.While we are as sure as science can make us about the general validity of this law as applied to the physical world, its application to human development may be doubted. It seems to me to hold good in this case also, if it is applied with proper caution. The difficulty lies in the circumstance that we have no exact objective means of measuring homogeneity and heterogeneity in human affairs, and we can therefore not study any given system closely enough to draw a quantitative conclusion. It seems pretty certain that increase of culture tends to diminish the differences between men. It equalizes not only the general standard of living, but attenuates also even the natural differences of sex and age. From this point of view I should look upon the accumulation of enormous wealth in the hands of a single man as indicating an imperfect state of culture.The property which has been described as an irresistible tendency toward diffusion may also be observed in certain cases in man. In conscious beings such natural tendencies are accompanied by a certain feeling which we call will, and we are happy when we are allowed to act according to these tendencies or according to our will. Now, if we recall the happiest moments of our lives, they will be found in every case to be connected with a curious loss of personality. In the happiness of love this fact will be at once discovered. And if you are enjoying intensely a work of art, a symphony of Beethoven's, for example, you find yourself relieved of the burden of personality and carried away by the stream of music as a drop is carried by a wave. The same feeling comes with the grand impressions nature gives us. Even when I am sitting quietly sketching in the open there comes to me in a happy moment a sweet feeling of being united with the nature about me, which is distinctly characterized by complete forgetfulness of my poor self. We may conclude from this that individuality means limitations and unhappiness, or is at least closely connected with them.

While we are as sure as science can make us about the general validity of this law as applied to the physical world, its application to human development may be doubted. It seems to me to hold good in this case also, if it is applied with proper caution. The difficulty lies in the circumstance that we have no exact objective means of measuring homogeneity and heterogeneity in human affairs, and we can therefore not study any given system closely enough to draw a quantitative conclusion. It seems pretty certain that increase of culture tends to diminish the differences between men. It equalizes not only the general standard of living, but attenuates also even the natural differences of sex and age. From this point of view I should look upon the accumulation of enormous wealth in the hands of a single man as indicating an imperfect state of culture.

The property which has been described as an irresistible tendency toward diffusion may also be observed in certain cases in man. In conscious beings such natural tendencies are accompanied by a certain feeling which we call will, and we are happy when we are allowed to act according to these tendencies or according to our will. Now, if we recall the happiest moments of our lives, they will be found in every case to be connected with a curious loss of personality. In the happiness of love this fact will be at once discovered. And if you are enjoying intensely a work of art, a symphony of Beethoven's, for example, you find yourself relieved of the burden of personality and carried away by the stream of music as a drop is carried by a wave. The same feeling comes with the grand impressions nature gives us. Even when I am sitting quietly sketching in the open there comes to me in a happy moment a sweet feeling of being united with the nature about me, which is distinctly characterized by complete forgetfulness of my poor self. We may conclude from this that individuality means limitations and unhappiness, or is at least closely connected with them.

Professor Ostwald showed me the studio which now takes the place of the laboratory. It is still part laboratory, for he is experimenting in pigments and has invented new forms of crayons or pastels and methods of fixation. In painting, as in everything else, he works with rapidity and effectiveness. Three days at Niagara Falls gave him two dozen or more pictures. He has a good eye for picturesqueness and uses vivid and varied coloration. He utilized his time at the University of California to get some fine views of Berkeley and Professor Loeb's seaside laboratory. His stay at Harvard as exchange professor in 1905 gave him many scenes from Marblehead and Cambridge, among them a striking picture of the Harvard stadium seen across the river flats and looking as imposing as the Coliseum. Photography he has practiced from boyhood. It was by this and the manufacture of fireworks in his mother's kitchen that he took his first steps in chemistry. He has always been fond of music, both as listener and performer, playing the violin well, and, says his conscientious biographer, the bassoon very badly. We are also told that in his student days he composed a symphony, wrote much poetry, and applied himself diligently to the study of the laws of motion by experimenting for hours on the impact of elastic ivory balls upon a plane green surface.

Walking, however, has ever been his chief recreation, if we can call that a recreation which is the means of his most productive thought. After lunch he showed me about his estate, a wooded upland overlooking the village houses, clustered about kirk andGasthaus, and, beyond, the level, orderly Saxon landscape, with its leisurely windmills. The winding walks appear to be sufficiently long to enable him to evolve undisturbed the most complicated German sentence. The stranger can find his way to Landhaus Energie by inquiring of a villager for "the house with the big post box", for when Ostwald took up his residence in Gross-Bothen, this provision had to be made for the enormous mail coming to him from all parts of the world.

One can generally tell in Germany the date of erection or occupancy of a country house by whether it is called a "Villa" or a "Landhaus." The Germanic movement is bent upon expelling all the foreigners from the language. So now we seeFahrkartein place ofBillet, formerly used;Fern-sprecherin place ofTelefon; Zweikampfin place ofDuell; andEinheitslehrein place ofMonismus.The adoption of an international auxiliary language would, Professor Ostwald explained to me, facilitate this movement, for it would leave each local language to develop in its own way, free from the penalty of isolation.

I thought, as I walked back through the smooth, clean, tree-lined road to the railroad station, that here at least was a man who had attained that internal peace and happiness, that external honor and usefulness, which theoretically should reward all philosophers. Few men have so wide a fame in science. Still fewer have so many devoted friends among their former students. That he has any personal enemies it would be hard to believe, though he has many opponents. He has earned his success by his own exertions, working his way up to his present position by sheer force of character and ability. He was the second son of a master cooper of Riga, an old Hansa town of Baltic Russia. He was born September 2, 1853, and educated at theReal-gymnasiumof Riga and the University of Dorpat, Russia (1872-1875). His dissertation at the conclusion of his course here, on "The Mass Action of Water", broke new ground in a field that he was henceforth to make his own. He thought himself lucky then to secure a position as assistant in physics at Dorpat at two hundred and fifty dollars a year, because this gave him an opportunity for research, and his master's and doctor's dissertations attracted attention by their bold adoption and development of the new theories of solutions and affinity. He utilized his vacations at Riga in cultivating—by means of piano and paint brush—the acquaintance of Fraulein Helene von Reyher, whom he married when he was twenty-seven. His comrades reminded him that not long before he had declared that he would never marry, for he should devote all his time to science. But he answered: "I had to marry, because the girl interfered with my work." The measure was efficacious, for she has not interfered with his work since, even finding time to assist in his literary labors, although she has brought up five children. They took their wedding journey in a postwagon from Riga to Dorpat and set up housekeeping with a kerosene stove and a small piano as their principal furniture; no sofa. Readers who understand the importance of the sofa in a German household will appreciate the deprivation. The next year he was called to his native city as professor of chemistry in the Riga Polytechnic, and in 1887 he left Russia for Germany to take the chair of chemistry at Leipzig University.

In his study of men of science Ostwald has introduced the distinction of classicist and romanticist. The classicist keeps to one line of thought and develops it by himself logically and completely. His mind works mathematically, and he is fond of systems and formulation, often addicted to dogmatism. He is accurate and thorough, but deficient in experimental ability and regardless of practical applications. He is reluctant to publish and is apt to be a poor teacher, exerting little personal influence on his students and sometimes none on his contemporaries.

The romanticist, on the other hand, is usually a good teacher and often the founder of a school of thought. He has the expansive temperament and genial disposition; fond of conversation and given to rapid publication. He carries on many different lines of work at the same time and is eager to put them into practice as soon as possible. He is an adventurous theorizer, willing to risk a leap in the dark, arriving at conclusions by a sort of intuition and not always able to explain how he got his results. He is, therefore, liable to make conspicuous mistakes and is apt to be impatient of details. The romanticist gets paid in current coin, that is to say, in the devotion of his disciples and in honors from his colleagues, sometimes even in applause and wealth from a grateful public. The classicist has to put up with deferred payment, and his services to science often receive no adequate recognition until after he is dead and sometimes not then.

Among American scientists we have almost perfect specimens of these two genera. Count Rumford was a typical romanticist and Willard Gibbs a typical classicist, and there was, as I have shown elsewhere,[14]the greatest possible contrast in their characters and careers. Ostwald, it is unnecessary to say, has all the characteristics of the romanticist. He has become a world teacher through his books and periodicals. He has trained in his laboratory Arrhenius, Nernst, and many others of almost equal eminence. He has had the satisfaction of seeing his abstract theories become the working basis of enormous industries.

It is worthy of note that the science which in Germany has been most closely connected with the universities and in which the most pure research has been done, has developed most rapidly and proved most profitable. The annual value of the products of the chemical industries of Germany is over three hundred million dollars. And this is only one of the sources of the new wealth which is coming to Germany and making that country one of the foremost of world powers. In Great Britain emigration exceeds immigration, while in Germany of late the reverse is true, although in Germany the increase in population from the surplus of births over deaths is nine hundred thousand, twice what it is in Great Britain. At this rate, Germany will soon have a population twice as large as that of Great Britain. And the wealth of Germany is increasing faster than the population, notwithstanding the heavy drains of army and navy. I asked Professor Ostwald the cause of Germany's amazing prosperity. "We Germans believe in science," he answered simply.

The ideals of system, economy, and efficiency which have been developed in the laboratory have been applied in Germany more than elsewhere to military affairs, the promotion of commerce, and methods of administration. That the scientific view should prevail in dealing with all social problems is Ostwald's intent, and in furtherance of this aim he is devoting his chief attention to the discussion of the ethical and political questions of the day through the Monist societies. As an example of his mode of thought on such topics, I quote a passage from his "Individuality and Immortality":

There can be no doubt about nature being full of cruelty. All through the whole realm of organic beings we find in nearly every class of animals and plants some species which live at the expense of their fellow creatures. I mean parasitic organisms of every kind, whether they live in the interior of their hosts, whom they kill or make miserable, or whether they feed directly on other creatures. No one thinks of punishing a cat who tortures a poor mouse for no vital purpose whatever, and we find it perfectly natural that the larvæ of certain wasps should develop in the interior of caterpillars, slowly devouring their hosts from within. It is only man who tries to change this general way of nature's and to diminish as far as possible cruelty and injustice to his fellow man and his fellow creatures. And from the strong desire that this black stain should be removed as fully as possible from humanity, the idea developed that there must be beyond our bodily life a possibility of compensating for the evil which is done and for that which is suffered during life without due punishment or reward as suggested by our sense of justice.But reward and punishment take on a wholly different aspect when we regard mankind as one collective being. Then the single individual is comparable to a cell in a highly developed organism. Destruction of his fellow cells would be a nuisance and a menace to the whole organism, and therefore any cell which destroyed its neighbors would be either removed from the organism or else encysted and kept from doing further damage. And on the other hand such cells as fulfilled useful purposes would be nourished and protected.The very necessity for overcoming such dangerous actions on the part of the cells means a decrease in the efficiency of the organism, since the work necessary for the purpose could be better used for the immediate benefit of the organism itself. The best thing would then be to avoid beforehand the formation of such bad cells, and an organism possessed of appropriate means of doing this would have a great advantage.The application of these considerations to the human collective organism is obvious. Punishment means in every case a loss, and the aim of increasing culture is not to make punishment more effective, but to make it unnecessary. The more each individual is filled with the consciousness that he belongs to the great collective organism of humanity, the less will he be able to separate his own aims and interests from those of humanity. A reconciliation between duty to the race and personal happiness is the result, as well as an unmistakable standard by which to judge our own actions and those of our fellow men.Self-sacrifice has been considered in all ages and by all religions as the very highest perfection of ethical development. At the same time every man who has thought a little deeper has been aware that the self-sacrifice must have a meaning, that it must result in some effect which could not be attained by other means. Otherwise the self-sacrifice would not be a gain, but rather a loss, to humanity. But we consider self-sacrifice for the sake of humanity as justified, and this corresponds with our general feeling. We admire a man who throws himself into a fire or a torrent to save a child from death; it should mean even more to us when a physician goes into the midst of a raging pestilence conscious of the peril awaiting him. But we do not esteem a man the more for risking his life to save his money from a burning house.

But reward and punishment take on a wholly different aspect when we regard mankind as one collective being. Then the single individual is comparable to a cell in a highly developed organism. Destruction of his fellow cells would be a nuisance and a menace to the whole organism, and therefore any cell which destroyed its neighbors would be either removed from the organism or else encysted and kept from doing further damage. And on the other hand such cells as fulfilled useful purposes would be nourished and protected.

The very necessity for overcoming such dangerous actions on the part of the cells means a decrease in the efficiency of the organism, since the work necessary for the purpose could be better used for the immediate benefit of the organism itself. The best thing would then be to avoid beforehand the formation of such bad cells, and an organism possessed of appropriate means of doing this would have a great advantage.

The application of these considerations to the human collective organism is obvious. Punishment means in every case a loss, and the aim of increasing culture is not to make punishment more effective, but to make it unnecessary. The more each individual is filled with the consciousness that he belongs to the great collective organism of humanity, the less will he be able to separate his own aims and interests from those of humanity. A reconciliation between duty to the race and personal happiness is the result, as well as an unmistakable standard by which to judge our own actions and those of our fellow men.

Self-sacrifice has been considered in all ages and by all religions as the very highest perfection of ethical development. At the same time every man who has thought a little deeper has been aware that the self-sacrifice must have a meaning, that it must result in some effect which could not be attained by other means. Otherwise the self-sacrifice would not be a gain, but rather a loss, to humanity. But we consider self-sacrifice for the sake of humanity as justified, and this corresponds with our general feeling. We admire a man who throws himself into a fire or a torrent to save a child from death; it should mean even more to us when a physician goes into the midst of a raging pestilence conscious of the peril awaiting him. But we do not esteem a man the more for risking his life to save his money from a burning house.

The only one of Ostwald's philosophical works which is obtainable in English is the "Grundriss der Naturphilosophie", published in Reclam'sUniversal-Bibliothek(Leipzig) and translated by Thomas Seltzer and published by Henry Holt & Company, New York, under the title "Natural Philosophy." This is intended as a succinct popular exposition of the fundamental principles of all the sciences and is mostly devoted to a systematic consideration of the theory of knowledge and laws of logic. It is, therefore, not so interesting to the general reader as some of his untranslated works in which he discusses a variety of ethical and social questions from the scientific standpoint, as for example "Die Forderung des Tages" ("The Day's Demands") (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft). His "Grosse Männer" (same publisher) contains biographical sketches of Davy, Mayer, Faraday, Liebig, Gerhardt, and Helmholtz as well as his general observations on the character and training of scientific discoverers. Ostwald's Harvard lecture on "Individuality and Immortality" was published by the Houghton Mifflin Company, 1906. He is now issuing a series of informal talks on scientific ideals and morals under the title of "Monistische Sonntagspredigten" (Verlag des Deutschen Monisten-Bundes in Berlin). A second series was published by the Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig, and a third by the Verlag Unesma, Leipzig. A few of the titles will indicate their character and scope: "Love One Another", "The Jatho Case", "How Evil Came into the World", "The Freedom of the Will", "What is Truth?" "Nietzsche and the Struggle for Existence", "Natural Science and Paper Science", "The Philosopher's Stone", "Efficiency." The last named was published inThe Independent, October 19, 1911. "The Wave Theory of History", an explanation of the cause of periodic alternations in finance and politics, was published inThe Independent, July 10, 1913. An article, "Breaking Barriers", appeared inThe Masses, February, 1911. It is greatly to be desired that all of these "Monistic Sunday Sermons" as well as "The Day's Duty" and "Great Men" be translated into English, as they represent a point of view of growing importance in modern thought.

Other articles by Ostwald accessible in English are: "The Philosophical Meaning of Energy", inThe International Quarterly, Vol. VII; "The Modern Theory of Energetics", with criticism by Dr. Carus, inThe Monist, 1907; "Chemical Energy" in theJournal of the American Chemical Society, August, 1893, and in the Smithsonian Report for 1893; "A Contribution to the Theory of Science", his address before the Section of Methodology at the St. Louis Congress, inPopular Science Monthly, 1905, p. 219; "The Art of Making Discoveries", inScience American Supplement, No. 1807; a character sketch of Sir William Ramsay inNature, January 11, 1912.

Of Ostwald's chemical works the following have been translated into English: "Conversations on Chemistry" (Wiley). "Manual of Physical and Chemical Measurements" (Macmillan), translated by James Walker. "The Scientific Foundation of Analytical Chemistry", translated by G. McGowan (Macmillan). "Solutions", translated by M. Pattison Muir (Longmans). "The Principles of Inorganic Chemistry", translated by Alex. Findlay (Macmillan). "The Fundamental Principles of Chemistry", translated by Harry W. Morse (Longmans). "Letters to a Painter on Theory and Practice", translated by Morse (Ginn).

The serious student of Ostwald's thought will of course devote himself chiefly to his "Annalen der Natur- und Kulturphilosophie" (Leipzig: Verlag Unesma). The latest and most complete summary of his conception of the universe is given in "Die Philosophie der Werte" (Alfred Kröner, Leipzig, 1914). In the Lübeck lecture, "Die Ueberwindung des wissenschaftlichen Materialismus" (Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie, Band18, pp. 305-320, and separately published by Veit, Leipzig, 1895), and the "Vorlesungen über Naturphilosophie" (Veit, 1902) he laid the foundations of his theory. In "Die energetische Grundlagen der Kulturwissenschaft" (Leipzig, 1909) he extended it to include the science of civilization. In "Die wissenschaftliche Stellung" ("Annalen der Naturphilosophie", Vol. X), he defends himself against certain misconceptions, as, for example, that he makes energy the sole reality in the world, or a metaphysical principle like Hartmann's "Unconscious." Ostwald's educational view may be found in chapters of "Die Forderung des Tages", in the article on "The University of the Future and the Future of the University" ("Annalen der Naturphilosophie", Vol. X, p. 236), and in "Wider das Schulelend, Ein Notruf" (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft). "Erfinder und Entdecker" contains sketches of Mayer, Helmholtz, and Liebig (Vol. XXIV ofDie Gesellschaft, Frankfurt a. M.: Rütten und Leoning). "Die Energie" is a popular exposition of energetics (Vol. I of Wissen und Können. Leipzig: Barth). Ostwald's contributions to internationalism are mostly published byDie Brücke, Munich. His popular propaganda of the gospel of Monism is now carried on by the weekly organ of the society, which he edits,Das Monistische Jahrhundert(Verlag Unesma, Leipzig).

An intimate and appreciative sketch of the life and work of "Wilhelm Ostwald" was written by P. Walden on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his doctorate (Leipzig: Engelmann).

There is space here to give only a few references to discussions and criticisms of Ostwald's theories. Doctor Roberty, in "Energétique et Sociologie" (Revue philosophique, January, 1910), shows the vast importance of Ostwald's extension of the laws of energetics to vital and social phenomena. A painstaking comparison of the contradictory theories of Lombroso and Ostwald on the character of genius is contributed by Georg Wendel toZeit. für Philosophie, 1910. In theVierteljahrsschrift für wiss. Philosophie und Soziologiefor 1905 will be foundBemerkungen über die Metaphysik in der Ostwald'schen Energetik, by F. W. Adler, andAtomistik und Energetik von Standpunkte ökonomischer Naturbetrachtung,by Hermann Wolff. F. Dennert in his volume on "Die Weltanschauung des modernen Naturforschers" (Stuttgart, 1907) devotes a chapter to Ostwald.

I must also mention the valuable articles contributed by Doctor Fielding H. Garrison to theNew York Medical Journal, September 11, 1909, on "Physiology and the Second Law of Thermodynamics", in which he discusses the application of the theories of Gibbs and Ostwald to biology.

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