http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1855buchner.html
Ludwig Büchner:
Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered, 1855
This is one of the most successful, and early, statements on Materialism
stemming from the conclusions of the New Science.
Force and Matter
No force without matter---no matter without force! Neither can be thought
of per se; separated, they become empty abstractions. Imagine matter without
force, and the minute particles of which a body consists, without that system
of mutual attraction and repulsion which holds them together and gives form and
shape to the body; imagine the molecular forces of cohesion and affinity
removed, what then would be the consequence? The matter must instantly break up
into a shapeless nothing. We know in the physical world of no instance of any
particle of matter which is not endowed with forces, by means of which it plays
its appointed part in some form or another, sometimes in connection with
similar or with dissimilar particles. Nor are we in imagination capable of
forming a conception of matter without force. . . . Force without matter is
equally an idle notion. It being a law admitting of no exception that force can
only be manifested in matter, it follows that force can as little possess a
separate existence as matter without force....
What are the philosophical consequences of this simple and natural truth?
That those who talk of a creative power, which is said to have produced the
world out of itself, or out of nothing, are ignorant of the first and most
simple principle, founded upon experience and the contemplation of nature. How
could a power have existed not manifested in material substance, but governing
it arbitrarily according to individual views? Neither could separately existing
forces be transferred to chaotic matter and produce the world in this manner;
for we have seen that a separate existence of either is an impossibility. It
will be shown in the chapter which treats of the imperishability of matter that
the world could not have originated out of nothing. A nothing is not merely a
logical but also an empirical nonentity. The world, or matter with its
properties which we term forces, must have existed from eternity and must last
forever---in one word, the world cannot have been created. The notion "eternal"
is certainly one which, with our limited faculties, is difficult of conception.
The facts, nevertheless, leave no doubt as to the eternity of the world....
Immortality of Matter
Matter is immortal, indestructible. There is not an atom in the universe
which can be lost. We cannot, even in thought, remove or add an atom without
admitting that the world would thereby be disturbed and the laws of gravitation
and the equilibrium of matter interfered with. It is the great merit of modern
chemistry to have proved in the most convincing manner that the uninterrupted
change of matter which we daily witness, the origin and decay of organic and
inorganic forms and tissues, do not arise, as was hitherto believed, from new
materials, but that this change consists in nothing else but the constant and
continuous metamorphosis of the same elementary principles, the quantity and
quality of which ever is, and ever remains, the same. Matter has, by means of
the scales, been followed in all its various and complicated transitions, and
everywhere has it been found to emerge from any combination in the same
quantity as it has entered. The calculations founded upon this law have
everywhere proved to be perfectly correct. .. .
How can anyone deny the axiom that out of nothing, nothing can arise? The
matter must be in existence, though previously in another form and combination,
to produce or to share in any new formation. All atom of oxygen, of nitrogen,
or of iron, is everywhere and under all circumstances the same thing, endowed
with the same immanent qualities, and can never in all eternity become anything
else. Be it wheresoever it will, it must remain the same; from every
combination, however heterogeneous, must it emerge the self-same atom. But
never can an atom arise anew or disappear: it can only change its combinations.
For these reasons is matter immortal: and for this reason is it, as already
shown, impossible that the world can have been created. How could anything be
created that cannot be annihilated? . . .
There exists a phrase, repeated ad nauseam, of "mortal body and immortal
spirit." A closer examination causes us with more truth to reverse the
sentence. The body is certainly mortal in its
individual form, but not in its constituents. It changes not merely in
death, but, as we have seen, also during life: however, in a higher sense it is
immortal, since the smallest particle of which it is composed cannot be
destroyed. On the contrary, that which we call "spirit" disappears with the
dissolution of the individual material combination; and it must appear to any
unprejudiced intellect as if the concurrent action of many particles of matter
had produced an effect which ceases with the cause.
Dignity of Matter
To despise matter and our own body, because it is material---to consider
nature and the world as dust which we must endeavor to shake off---nay, to
torment our own body, can only arise from a confusion of notions, the result of
ignorance or fanaticism. Different feelings animate him who has, with the eyes
of an observer, followed matter in its recondite gyrations, who has marked its
various and manifold phenomena. He has learned that matter is not inferior to
but the peer of spirit; that one cannot exist without the other; and that
matter is the vehicle of all mental power, of all human and earthly greatness.
We may, perhaps, share with one of our greatest naturalists his enthusiasm for
matter, "the veneration of which formerly called forth an accusation." Whoever
degrades matter, degrades himself; who abuses his body, abuses his mind and
injures himself to the same degree as, in his foolish imagination, he believed
to have profited his soul. We frequently hear those persons contemptuously
called materialists, who do not share the fashionable contempt for matter but
endeavor to fathom by its means the powers and laws of existence; who have
discerned that spirit could not have built the world out of itself, and that it
is impossible to arrive at a just conception of the world without an exact
knowledge of matter and its laws. In this sense, the name of materialist can
nowadays be only a title of honor. It is to materialists that we owe the
conquest over matter and a knowledge of its laws, so that, almost released from
the chains of gravitation, we fly with the swiftness of the wind across the
plain and are enabled to communicate, with the celerity of thought, with the
most distant parts of the globe. Malevolence is silenced by such facts; and the
times are past in which a world, produced by a deceitful fancy, was considered
of more value than the reality....
Increased knowledge has taught us to have more respect for the matter
without and within us. Let us, then, cultivate our body no less than our mind;
and let us not forget that they are inseparable, so that which profits the one,
profits the other! Mens sana in corpore sano. On the other hand, we must not
forget that we are but a vanishing, though necessary, part of the whole, which
sooner or later must again be absorbed in the universe. Matter in its totality
is the mother, engendering and receiving again all that exists.
Immutability of the Laws of Nature
The laws according to which nature acts, and matter moves, now destroying,
now rebuilding, and thus producing the most varied organic and inorganic forms,
are eternal and unalterable. An unbending, inexorable necessity governs the
mass. "The law of nature," observes Moleschott, "is a stringent expression of
necessity." There exists in it neither exception nor limitation, and no
imaginable power can disregard this necessity. A stone not supported will in
all eternity fall toward the center of the earth; and there never was, and
never will be, a command for the sun to stand still. The experience of
thousands of years has impressed upon the investigator the firmest conviction
of the immutability of the laws of nature, so that there cannot remain the
least doubt in respect to this great truth.
Science has gradually taken all the positions of the childish belief of the
peoples; it has snatched thunder and lightning from the hands of the gods; the
eclipse of the stars, and the stupendous powers of the Titans of the olden
time, have been grasped by the fingers of man. That which appeared
inexplicable, miraculous, and the work of a supernatural power, has, by the
torch of science, proved to be the effect of hitherto unknown natural forces.
The power of spirits and gods dissolved in the hands of science. Superstition
declined among cultivated nations, and knowledge took its place. We have the
fullest right, and are scientifically correct, in asserting there is no such
thing as a miracle; everything that happens does so in a natural way---i.e., in
a mode determined only by accidental or necessary coalition of existing
materials and their immanent natural forces. No revolution on earth or in
heaven, however stupendous, could occur in any other manner.
It was no mighty arm reaching down from the ether which raised the
mountains, limited the seas, and created man and beast according to pleasure,
but it was effected by the same forces which to this day produce hill and dale
and living beings; and all this happened according to the strictest
necessity....
The fate of man resembles the fate of nature. It is similarly dependent on
natural laws, and it obeys without exception the same stringent and inexorable
necessity which governs all that exists. It lies in the nature of every living
being that it should be born and die; none has ever escaped that law; death is
the surest calculation that can be made, and the unavoidable keystone of every
individual existence. The supplications of the mother, the tears of the wife,
the despair of the husband, cannot stay his hands. "The natural laws," says
Vogt, "are rude unbending powers, which have neither morals nor heart." No call
can awaken from the sleep of death; no angel can deliver the prisoner from the
dungeon; no hand from the clouds reaches bread to the hungry....
Apparent exceptions from the natural order have been called miracles, of
which there have been many at all times. Their origin must be ascribed partly
to superstition, and partly to that strange longing after what is wonderful and
supernatural, peculiar to human nature. It is somewhat difficult for rnan,
however evident the facts, to convince himself of the conformity which
surrounds him; it creates in him an oppressive feeling, and the desire never
leaves him to discover something which runs counter to this conformity. This
desire must have had a larger sphere among savage and ignorant tribes. We
should only waste words in our endeavor to prove the natural impossibility of a
miracle. No educated, much less a scicntific, person, who is convinced of the
immutable order of things, can nowadays believe in miracles....
It is not within our province to concern ourselves with those who, in their
attempts to explain the secret of existence, turn to faith. We are occupied
with the tangible sensible world, and not with that which every individual may
imagine to exist.
What this or that man may understand by a governing reason, an absolute
power, a universal soul, a personal God, etc., is his own affair. The
theologians, with their articles of faith, must be left to themselves; so the
naturalists with their science: they both proceed by different routes. The
province of faith rests in human dispositions, which are not accessible to
science; and even for the conscience of the individual, it does not appear
impossible to keep faith and science separate. A respectable naturalist
recently gave the ingenuous advice that we should keep two consciences, a
scientific and a religious conscience, which for the peace of our mind we
should keep perfectly separate, as they cannot be reconciled. This process is
now known by the technical expression of "bookkeeping by double entry." We said
the advice was ingenuous, because he whose conviction permits him to keep such
a conscience by double entry stands in no need of advice.
Periods of the Creation of the Earth
The investigations of geology have thrown a highly interesting and
important light on the history of the origin and gradual development of the
earth. It was in the rocks and strata of the crust of the earth, and in the
organic remains, that geologists read, as in an old chronicle, the history of
the earth. In this history they found the plainest indications of several
stupendous successive revolutions, now produced by fire, now by water, now by
their combined action. These revolutions afforded, by the apparent suddenness
and violence of their occurrence, a welcome pretext to orthodoxy to appeal to
the existence of supernatural powers, which were to have caused these
revolutions in order to render, by gradual transitions, the earth fit for
certain purposes. This successive periodical creation is said to have been
attended with a successive creation of new organic beings and species. The
Bible, then, was right in relating that God had sent a deluge over the world to
destroy a sinful generation. God with His own hands is said to have piled up
mountains, planed the sea, created organisms, etc.
All these notions concerning a direct influence of supernatural or
inexplicable forces have melted away before the age of modern science. Like
astronomy, which with mathematical certainty has measured the spaces of the
heavens, so does modern geology, by taking a retrospective view of the millions
of years which have passed, lift the veil which has so long concealed the
history of the earth and has given rise to all kinds of religious and
mysterious dreams. It is now known that there can be no discussion about these
periodic ereatiorts of the earth of which so much was said, and which to this
day an erroneous conception of nature tries to identify with the so-called days
of creation of the Bible, but that the whole past of the earth is nothing but
an unfolded present.
However probable it may at first sight appear that the changes, the traces
of which we find in the crust of the earth, must have resulted from sudden and
violent convulsions, closer observation teaches, on the contrary, that the
greater portion of these changes is merely the result of a gradual, slow
action, continued through immeasurably long periods of time; and that this
action may still be observed going on, though on so reduced a scale that the
effects do not particularly strike us. "For the earth," says Burmeister, "is
solely produced by forces which, with corresponding intensity, are still
acting; it has never essentially been subjected to more violent catastrophies;
on the other hand, the period of time in which the change was effected is
immense, etc. What is really surprising and stupendous in the process of
development of the immeasurable time within which it was effected."
We see at present all these slow and local effects, which millions of years
have produced in their entirety, and cannot, therefore, divest ourselves of the
idea of a direct creative power, whilst we are merely surrounded by the natural
effects of natural forces The whole science of the conditions of development of
the earth is however, the greatest victory over every kind of faith in an
extramundane authority. This science, supported by the knowledge of surrounding
nature and its governing forces, is enabled to trace the history of what has
happened in infinite periods of time with approximating exactness, frequently
with certainty. It has proved that everywhere, and at all times, only those
materials and natural forces were in activity by which we are at present
surrounded. Nowhere was a point reached, when it was necessary to stop
scientific investigation and to substitute the influence of unknown forces.
Everywhere it was possible to indicate or to conceive the possibility of
visible effects from the combination of natural conditions; everywhere existed
the same law and the same matter.
Personal Continuance
A spirit without body is as unimaginable as electricity or magnetism
without metallic or other substances on which these forces act. We have equally
shown that the animal soul does not come into the world with any innate
intuitions, that it does not represent an ens per se, but is a product of
external influences, without which it would never have been called into
existence. In the face of all these facts, unprejudiced philosophy is compelled
to reject the idea of an individual immortality and of a personal continuance
after death. With the decay and dissolution of its material substratum, through
which alone it has acquired a conscious existence and become a person, and upon
which it was dependent, the spirit must cease to exist. All knowledge which
this being has acquired relates to earthly things; it has become conscious of
itself in, with, and by these things; it has become a person by its being
opposed against earthly, limited individualities. How can we imagine it to be
possible that, torn away from these necessary conditions, this being should
continue to exist with self-consciousness and as the same person? It is not
reflection but obstinacy and as the same person? It is not reflection but
obstinacy, not science but faith, which supports the idea of a personal
continuance....
Free Will
Man is a product of nature in body and mind. Hence not merely what he is
but also what he does, wills, feels, and thinks depends upon the same natural
necessity as the whole structure of the world Only a superficial observation of
human existence could lead to the conclusion that the actions of nations and of
individuals were the result of a perfectly free will. A closer inquiry teaches
us, on the contrary, that the connection of nature is so essential and
necessary, that free will, if it exist, can only have a very limited range; it
teaches us to recognize in all these phenomena fixed laws which hitherto were
considered as the results of free choice. "Human liberty, of which all boast'
says Spinoza, "consists solely in this, that man is conscious of his will, and
unconscious of the causes by which it is determined "
That this view is no longer theoretical, but sufficiently established by
fact is chiefly owing to that interesting new science of statistics, which
exhibts fixed laws in a mass of phenomena that until now were considered to be
arbitrary and accidental. The data for this truth are frequently lost in
investigating individual phenomena, but taken collectively they exhibit a
strict order, inexorably ruling men and humanity. It may, without exaggeration,
be stated that at present most physicians and practical psychologists incline
to the view in relation to free will that human actions are, in the last
instance, dependent upon a fixed necesity, so that in every individual case
free choice has only an extremely limited, if any, sphere of action . . .
The conduct and actions of every individual are dependent upon the
character, manners, and modes of thought of the nation to which he belongs.
These again are, to a certain extent, the necessary product of external
circumstances under which they live and have grown up....
If the nations are thus in the aggregate, in regard to character and
history, dependent upon external circumstances, the individual is no less the
product of external and internal natural actions, not merely in relation to his
physical and moral nature but in his actions. These actions depend necessarily,
in the first instance, upon his intellectual individuality. But what is this
intellectual individuality which determines man and prescribes to him, in every
individual case, his mode of action with such force that there remains for him
but a minute space for free choice; what else is it but the necessary product
of congenital physical and mental dispositions in connection with education,
example, rank, property, sex, nationality, climate, soil, and other
circumstances? Man is subject to the same laws as plants and animals.....
An unprejudiced study of nature and the world, based upon innumerable
facts, shows that the actions of individuals and of men in general are
determined by physical necessities which restrict free will within the
narrowest limits. Hence it has been concluded that the partisans of this
doctrine denied the discernment of crime and that they desired the acquittal of
every criminal, by which the state and society would be thrown into a state of
anarchy. We shall presently return to the last reproach which has, by the way,
thousands of times been made to natural science; as to the first, it is too
absurd to deserve any refutation. No scientific system has rendered the
necessity of social and political order more evident than that to which natural
science owes its progress, nor has any modem naturalist denied to the state the
right of legitimate defense against attacks on the well-being of society. What
is true is that the partisans of these modern ideas hold different opinions as
regards crime and would banish that cowardly and irreconcilable hatred which
the state and society have hitherto cherished with so much hypocrisy as regards
the malefactor. Penetrated by such ideas, we cannot help a feeling of
commiseration for the offender, whilst we not the less abhor every action
calculated to disturb society; a humane sentiment, which gives the preference
to preventive measures over punishment...
Concluding Observations
We must finally be permitted to leave all questions about morality and
utility out of sight. The chief and indeed the sole object which concerned us
in these researches is truth. Nature exists neither for religion, for morality,
nor for human beings; but it exists for itself. What else can we do but take it
as it is? Would it not be ridiculous in us to cry like little children because
our bread is not sufficiently buttered?
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