General physiology : an outline of the science of life / by Max Verworn, tr. from the 2d German ed. and edited by Frederic S. Lee. With two hundred and eighty-five illustrations.

  • Max Verworn
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General physiology : an outline of the science of life / by Max Verworn, tr. from the 2d German ed. and edited by Frederic S. Lee. With two hundred and eighty-five illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

    53/640 (page 33)
    Here, according to clu Bois-Reyniond, we stand at one limit of our knowledge of nature. What an atom is, i.e., what matter endowed with energy is, the world-formula does not explain. If we ask how we amve at the conception of an atom, we find that we conceive it as an exces- sively small, indivisible, elementary part of a body, derived by con- tinued division of the body; but if a body be continually divided until its atoms are reached, nothing but body is obtained. Atoms are bodies, and have the general characteristics of bodies. We cannot, therefore, expect to obtain by division something that elucidates the nature of the body. When we explain an unknown phenomenon by the motions of atoms, we merely resolve it into unknown phenomena. What an atom is, we do not learn, for it has only the properties which weaf tribute to it on the basis of the sense-perception of what large bodies show us, i.e., it is hard, im- penetrable, possesses form, and moves. But we obtain not the slightest information regarding the nature of the matter that is endowed with energy, i.e., that of which the physical world con- sists. Our craving for causality remains, therefore, in this respect unsatisfied, and as the result of our analysis we find ourselves at the^ first limit of our knowledge. But this is not the only limit. If, again, Ave possessed astro- nomical knowledge of the physical world, as du Bois-Reymond expresses it, i.e., the same mathematically exact knowledge of the motions of atoms that we have of the motions of the heavenly bodies, we would then, indeed, understand all phenomena of the physical world, but we would not understand how consciousness arises, how in general a psychical phenomenon, even the very simplest, comes to be. If we had, e.g., astronomical knowledge of our brain, we would know the position and motion of every atom at every moment; we could also follow definitely the specific ])hysical changes, rearrangements, and motions of atoms insepar- ably associated with specific psychical phenomena, and it would be, as du Bois-Reymond says, of unbounded interest, if with our mental eye turned inward we could observe the cerebral mechanics of an arithmetical problem, like the mechanics of a calculating machine; or if we could know what dance of the atoms of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and other elements, cor- responds to the delight of musical sensation, what whirl of sucli atoms to the acme of sense-enjoyment, what molecular storm to the frantic pain resulting from maltreatment of the nervus trigeminus. We could know all these if we possessed astronomical know- ledge of the brain. We could thus convince ourselves by self- observation that consciousness is inseparably associated with atomic motion. But with all this it would remain for ever con- cealed from us how consciousness arises, how the simplest psychical D