Natural Philosophy

by Wilhelm Ostwald

A comparison of our investigations—which we cannot present in detail but only indicate—with the science of language or philology as taught in the universities and in a great number of books, reveals a great difference between them. This academic philology makes a most exhaustive study of relations, which from the point of view of the purpose of language are of no consequence whatever, such as most of the rules and usages of grammar. A study of this sort must naturally confine itself to a mere determination of whether certain individuals or groups of individuals have or have not conformed to these rules. Even the chief subject of modern comparative philology, the study of the relations of the word forms to one another and their changes in the course of history, both within the language communities and when transferred to other localities, appear to be quite useless from the point of view of the theory of co-ordination. For it is indeed of little moment to us to learn by what process of change, as a rule utterly superficial, a certain word has come to be co-ordinated with a concept entirely different from the one with which it had been previously co-ordinated. Of incomparably greater importance would be investigations concerning the gradual change of the concepts themselves, although by no means as important as the real study of concepts. To be sure, such investigations are much more difficult than the study of word forms set down in writing.

Nevertheless, on account of a historical process, which it would lead us too far afield to discuss, an idea of such word investigations has been formed which is wholly disproportionate to their importance. And if we ask ourselves what part such labors have taken in the progress of human civilization, we are at a loss for an answer. Students of the science of language make a sharp distinction between it and the knowledge of language, which is regarded as incomparably lower. But while a knowledge of language is important in at least one respect, in that it presents to us the cultural material set down in other languages, or makes them accessible in translation to those who do not know foreign languages, philology is of no service in this respect at all, and the pursuit of it will seem as inconceivably futile to future science as the scholasticism of the middle ages seems to us now.

The unwarranted importance attached to the historical study of language forms is paralleled by the equally unwarranted importance ascribed to grammatical and orthographic correctness in the use of language. This perverse pedantry has been carried to such lengths that it is considered almost dishonorable for any one to violate the usual forms of his mother tongue, or even of a foreign language, like the French. We forget that neither Shakespeare nor Luther nor Goethe spoke or wrote a "correct" English or German, and we forget that it cannot be the object of a true cultivation of language to preserve as accurately as possible existing linguistic usage, with its imperfections, amounting at times to absurdities. Its real object lies rather in the appropriate development and improvement of the language. We have already mentioned the fact that in one department, orthography, the true conception of the nature of language and of its development is gradually beginning to assert itself. Among most nations efforts are being made to improve orthography with a view to unambiguity, and when once sufficient clearness is had as to the object aimed for in spelling, there will be no special difficulty in finding the required means to attain it.

But in all the other departments of language we are still almost wholly without a conception of the genuine needs. Though the example of the English language proves that we can entirely dispense with the manifold co-ordinations in the same sentence as appearing in the special plural forms of the adjective, verb, pronoun, etc., yet the idea of consciously applying to other languages the natural process of improvement unconsciously evolved in the English language seems not to have occurred even to the boldest language reformers. So strongly are we all under the domination of the "schoolmaster" ideal, that is to say, the ideal of preserving every linguistic absurdity and impracticability simply because it is "good usage."

A twofold advantage will have been attained by the introduction of a universal auxiliary language ([183]). Recently the efforts in that direction have made considerable progress. In the first place it will provide a general means of communication in all matters of common human interest, especially the sciences. This will mean a saving of energy scarcely to be estimated. In the second place, the superstitious awe of language and our treatment of it will give way to a more appropriate evaluation of its technical aim. And when by the help of the artificial auxiliary language, we shall be able to convince ourselves daily how much simpler and completer such a language can be made than are the "natural" languages, then the need will irresistibly assert itself to have these languages also participate in its advantages. The consequences of such progress to human intellectual work in general would be extraordinarily great. For it may be asserted that philosophy, the most general of all the sciences, has hitherto made such extremely limited progress only because it was compelled to make use of the medium of general language. This is made obvious by the fact that the science most closely related to it, mathematics, has made the greatest progress of all, but that this progress began only after it had procured both in the Indo-Arabic numerals and in the algebraic signs a language which actually realizes very approximately the ideal of unambiguous co-ordination between concept and sign.

35. Continuity.

Up to this point our discussions have been based on the general concept of the thing, that is, of the individual experience differentiated from other experiences. Here the fact of being different, which, as a general experience, led to the corresponding elementary concept, appeared in the foreground in accordance with its generality. But in addition to it there is another general fact of experience, which has led to just as general a concept. It is the concept of continuity.

When, for example, we watch the diminution of light in our room as it grows dark in the evening, we can by no means say that we find it darker at the present moment than a moment before. We require a perceptibly long time to be able to say with certainty that it is now darker than before, and throughout the whole time we have never felt the increase of darkness from moment to moment, although theoretically we are absolutely convinced that this is the correct conception of the process.

This peculiar experience, our failure to perceive individual parts of a change, the reality of which we realize when the difference reaches a certain degree, is very general, and, like memory, is based upon a fundamental physiological fact. It has already been noted by Herbart, but its significance was first recognized by Fechner, and has since then become generally known in physiology and psychology under the name of threshold. Next to memory the threshold determines the fundamental lines of our psychic life.

The threshold therefore means that whatever state we are in a certain finite amount of difference or change must be stepped over before we can perceive the difference or change. This peculiarity appears in all our states or experiences. We have already given an example for the phenomena of light and darkness. The same is true of differences in color and of our judgments as to tone pitch and tone strength. Even the transition from feeling well to feeling ill is usually imperceptible, and it is only when the change occurs in a very brief time that we become conscious of it.