# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1863_S69
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Materialism, or the So-Called Results of Modern Natural Science. 69

"...structible foundation," says the author in the preface, "the empirico-philosophical view of nature must arrive at conclusions which, with decisiveness, banish every kind of supranaturalism and idealism from the explanation of natural occurrence, and represent this latter as wholly independent of the intervention of any external powers standing outside things. The final victory of this real-philosophical insight over its opponents seems to us beyond doubt. The strength of its proofs lies in facts, not in unintelligible or meaningless phrases. Against facts one cannot in the long run contend, cannot 'kick against the goad.'" We therefore consider it necessary to communicate this chapter word for word and in full, all the more because in judging the principle of materialism we might easily fall under suspicion of having, by omitting important passages, either distorted the sense or made a clear understanding impossible. Merely to give a preliminary overview of the whole, we set forth in advance, in its briefest form, the argument it contains. It is as follows: Force is a property of matter. Now since force would have been necessary for the creation of the world, but force is only a property of matter, matter would have had to exist before its own creation. Since this is absurd, it follows that the world is not created, that matter is eternal, and that nothing could or can exist except matter, with the property of force inherent in it from eternity.

By the motto, "Tres physici, duo athei" — among three natural scientists, two atheists — we are at once reminded that here we are dealing with the wisdom of the godless. Yet there are, according to this very motto, natural scientists who, in investigating nature, encounter the finger of God, and it is not an essential part of natural science to cry out clumsily at nature's unfathomable mysteries: "it simply happens that way of itself!" Moreover, the sensible man who has acquired so much knowledge of the world and of men as to know that in every art, every science, every occupation of men the number of bunglers is greater than that of the true masters, artists, and sages, will not let himself be swayed by majorities. But to the matter itself.

"Force is no thrusting god, no being of things separate from the material foundation. It is the inseparable property of matter, inherent in it from eternity." — "A force that were not bound to matter, that floated free above matter, is a wholly empty notion. To nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, to sulphur and phosphorus, their properties belong from eternity." (Moleschott.) — "If one goes to the bottom of the matter, one soon recognizes that there is neither force nor matter. Both are abstractions of things as they are, taken up from different points of view. They complement one another and they presuppose one another. Taken separately they have no subsistence, etc." — "Matter is not like a cart, before which the