Gustav Theodor Fechner.

Speech in celebration of his centenary birthday. 1)

On April 19, 1901, a century had passed since the day Gustav Theodor Fechner
first saw the light of this world. If today, at the celebration of this day, the Royal
Saxon Society of Sciences thinks to be the next to dedicate an hour of honorable
memory to her former member, she is well aware that our university and our city of
Leipzig are in possession This rare man may claim older rights. He has listened to the
association of this university since the seventeen-year-old graduated as a student of
medicine in the lists of their academic citizens, to the other, since after a varied
activity as a teacher of physics and philosophy, the eighty-six year old from life
difference. In the city though, in which he founded his home, and which had chosen
him in later days as her honorary citizen, in this city he was rooted like few others. In
the meadows and forests of their surroundings, that sense of the ever-living life of
nature, of which his world-view is fulfilled, always drew new nourishment. On the
bench between the trees of the Rosental, behind which today his archbearer looks
over the verdant meadow, the thoughts have emerged with which he has initiated the
last of his philosophical steps.
1) Held in the auditorium of the University of Leipzig on behalf of the Kgl. Sächs. Society of Sciences on May
11, 1901.

The Society of Sciences entered the circle of these relations relatively late. When
she was founded in 1846, Fechner was reluctant to join. Skeptical in everything that
was not part of the unchanging fundamentals of his faith and knowledge, he
distrusted the success of this creation. But after she came into being, he was and
remains one of her hardest working members until his last years. In the end, when in
the second half of his life he had gradually confined his teaching, and at last ceased
all, and when he withdrew more and more into the silence of his own house, it was
chiefly the meetings of our society in which he still lived entered into scientific
communication with the outside world. Here you were pretty sure to meet him every
month, his eyes shadowed by the green protective screen, either attentively listening
to the lectures or even giving new gifts from the inexhaustible fountain of his
research. Here it was, where he announced the first drafts of his future more
comprehensive works or further additions and expositions to them. Although he
usually cautiously prefaces the philosophical questions which concern him, the
relations in which his exact interpretations, adapted to the character of our
negotiations, are well recognizable are his philosophical ideas. The more impossible
it is to even sketch an approximate picture of the thought work of this long, busy life
in this fleeting hour, I may, therefore, be all the more assured of your indulgence, if I
restrict myself here mainly to the attempt to pursue the relations existing between
Fechner's works in the fields of exact investigation and that peculiar world-view
which confronts us in his more general works , How does Fechner the naturalist, the
founder of psychophysics and the inventor of the collective gauge, to Fechner the
philosopher? Like the observing and calculating physicist, who with cautious doubt
faces all scientific hypotheses, to the deeply religious-minded thinker, whose
endeavors, far beyond the limits of customary philosophy, are directed toward a
renewal and deepening of the consciousness of God revealed in Christianity? Did he,
as a philosopher, want to satisfy the needs of the mind that had nothing whatever to
do with the purposes of his scientific research? Or, if there is a connection between
these two directions of his mental work, what is the former? Has the philosopher
evolved from the naturalist, or conversely did the exact problems that he set himself,
especially in his later years, stem from his philosophical world-view? if there is a
connection between these two directions of his mental work, what is the former? Has
the philosopher evolved from the naturalist, or conversely did the exact problems that
he set himself, especially in his later years, stem from his philosophical world-
view? if there is a connection between these two directions of his mental work, what
is the former? Has the philosopher evolved from the naturalist, or conversely did the
exact problems that he set himself, especially in his later years, stem from his
philosophical world-view?

content
Section: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII
Supplements: I; II; III; IV; V; VI

I.

In the first half of his life Fechner was almost entirely a naturalist. Observations on
the galvanic phenomena, later on on the phenomena of subjective vision, the
afterimages, the contrast sensations, occupied him in addition to a rich literary
activity, devoted primarily to the scientific education, partly the summary of the
physical and chemical individual research of the time in extensive repertories
was. Those cheerful children of his mood, he at the same time pseudonym as
Dr.. Mises, as characteristic as this richly endowed personality may seem to reflect in
them, is only a recreation of more serious, laborious work.
If Fechner had been redeemed in the midst of his career from the grave suffering
that befell the not yet forty-year-old in years of infirmity, he would now see us as a
completely different person. As far as one thinks of it, which probably only happens
in the narrowest circles of specialists, one would probably say of him: He was a
diligent and prudent researcher, whose work on galvanism through the ingenuity with
which he made the mistakes of the attempted to eliminate at that time little-trained
experimental technique, could still be considered to some extent as a model of
methodology today. He has also provided summaries of the advances in physics and
chemistry that have been of merit in their time. But these are all services as many
other scholars of the day must show, whose names today are even little mentioned in
their fields of specialization. After all, the historian of science could not help but feel
a just astonishment at a quality of the youthful Fechner in which none of his
contemporaries took him up with-that is the tremendous labor force which he
operated. In 1824-1830, in addition to the translation of a work on the Diseases of the
Brain, he published an edition of Thénard's Lehrbuch der theoretischen und
praktischen Chemie in 6 volumes, one of Biot's Lehrbuch der Physik in 4 volumes,
the same work in a second, completely revised edition in 5 volumes, on which 2
volumes of a repertory of chemistry, containing a report on all significant new
researches, and in the next few years, until 1832, three volumes of a similar repertory
of experimental physics were joined. In addition to a number of minor chemical and
physical works, there was a larger study on the "Measurements of the Galvanic
Chain," an "Elementary Textbook of Electromagnetism," and finally, since 1830, the
editorship of a pharmaceutical Zentralblatt; in between came a "Catechism or
Examinatory on the Physiology of Man," a "Catechism of Logic or Thought," which
he had adopted for a collection of textbooks, and finally most of those under the
name of Dr. Ing. Mises published humoresques. 3 volumes of a similar repertory of
experimental physics were added. In addition to a number of minor chemical and
physical works, there was a larger study on the "Measurements of the Galvanic
Chain," an "Elementary Textbook of Electromagnetism," and finally, since 1830, the
editorship of a pharmaceutical Zentralblatt; in between came a "Catechism or
Examinatory on the Physiology of Man," a "Catechism of Logic or Thought," which
he had adopted for a collection of textbooks, and finally most of those under the
name of Dr. Ing. Mises published humoresques. 3 volumes of a similar repertory of
experimental physics were added. In addition to a number of minor chemical and
physical works, there was a larger study on the "Measurements of the Galvanic
Chain," an "Elementary Textbook of Electromagnetism," and finally, since 1830, the
editorship of a pharmaceutical Zentralblatt; in between came a "Catechism or
Examinatory on the Physiology of Man," a "Catechism of Logic or Thought," which
he had adopted for a collection of textbooks, and finally most of those under the
name of Dr. Ing. Mises published humoresques. In addition to a number of minor
chemical and physical works, there was a larger study on the "Measurements of the
Galvanic Chain," an "Elementary Textbook of Electromagnetism," and finally, since
1830, the editorship of a pharmaceutical Zentralblatt; in between came a "Catechism
or Examinatory on the Physiology of Man," a "Catechism of Logic or Thought,"
which he had adopted for a collection of textbooks, and finally most of those under
the name of Dr. Ing. Mises published humoresques. In addition to a number of minor
chemical and physical works, there was a larger study on the "Measurements of the
Galvanic Chain," an "Elementary Textbook of Electromagnetism," and finally, since
1830, the editorship of a pharmaceutical Zentralblatt; in between came a "Catechism
or Examinatory on the Physiology of Man," a "Catechism of Logic or Thought,"
which he had adopted for a collection of textbooks, and finally most of those under
the name of Dr. Ing. Mises published humoresques.
That is moderately calculated annually 3 to 4 volumes. If these volumes were
merely or, as the titles of the main works would seem, largely translator's work, that
would be a considerable achievement. But a man like Fechner was not created to be a
mere translator. Where the original was not enough for him, he went to independent
work, or he improved and supplemented, until nothing remained of the
original. Thus, in the preface to the third volume of Thénard's Chemistry, he had to
explain that from now on, in the field of organic chemistry, he could only use the
work of the French author like other previous textbooks; in the main it is necessary to
work independently on sources. Accordingly, four of the six volumes of the work are
certainly Fechner's own work. The same thing happened to him with Biot's
physics. In optics he had still held on to the Emanationslehre; Fechner helped the
undulation theory, which had just been brought to victory by Fresnel's interference
experiments, supplemented and improved the original work according to the latest
research elsewhere, and in the second edition replaced the Galvanismus and, when it
was no longer sufficient the electrochemistry treating band through a completely new,
for his time excellent work. In truth, these great textbooks were for the most part the
intellectual property of the German editor. They went by the name of the famous
French authors, because they promised a better book dealer success than that of the
humble German lecturer. No less are the repertories, which were joined to these great
textbooks, testimonies of an astounding workforce and, at the same time, a mastery of
the substance in completely different fields of exact natural science, as they have
scarcely since found themselves united in one personality. It is not only the
experimental individual works laid down in numerous editions of time and academia
that are scrupulously and transparently reported here. The author is also able to
introduce admirably the general conditions and results in the sometimes difficult
trains of thought of purely theoretical, mathematical-physical investigations. The
treatises of Poisson, Navier, Cauchy on the molecular structure of the body, which
had just come to light at that time, about the elasticity and other phenomena of
molecular forces, they are dealt with in their main thoughts with unsurpassed clarity,
so that these discussions can still be read with some usefulness today. You see, these
textbooks and repertories are by no means literary artisan work; they are by nature
reproductive in the main, but they betray a high degree of productive capacity in the
way the author has appropriated and exploited the scientific results. If one did not
know that Fechner alone, and often under aggravating external circumstances,
accomplished all this, one might think that behind one name a whole society of
scholars is concealed. they are explained by him in their main thoughts with
unsurpassed clarity, so that these discussions can still be read with advantage
today. You see, these textbooks and repertories are by no means literary artisan
work; they are by nature reproductive in the main, but they betray a high degree of
productive capacity in the way the author has appropriated and exploited the
scientific results. If one did not know that Fechner alone, and often under aggravating
external circumstances, accomplished all this, one might think that behind one name
a whole society of scholars is concealed. they are explained by him in their main
thoughts with unsurpassed clarity, so that these discussions can still be read with
advantage today. You see, these textbooks and repertories are by no means literary
artisan work; they are by nature reproductive in the main, but they betray a high
degree of productive capacity in the way the author has appropriated and exploited
the scientific results. If one did not know that Fechner alone, and often under
aggravating external circumstances, accomplished all this, one might think that
behind one name a whole society of scholars is concealed. these textbooks and
repertories are by no means literary artisan work; they are by nature reproductive in
the main, but they betray a high degree of productive capacity in the way the author
has appropriated and exploited the scientific results. If one did not know that Fechner
alone, and often under aggravating external circumstances, accomplished all this, one
might think that behind one name a whole society of scholars is concealed. these
textbooks and repertories are by no means literary artisan work; they are by nature
reproductive in the main, but they betray a high degree of productive capacity in the
way the author has appropriated and exploited the scientific results. If one did not
know that Fechner alone, and often under aggravating external circumstances,
accomplished all this, one might think that behind one name a whole society of
scholars is concealed.
Not voluntarily Fechner had taken on this tremendous burden. Certainly he would
have preferred to devote his time exclusively to independent investigations. But the
destitute private lecturer, who had found here in Leipzig a faithful companion,
sympathetic to his nature, relied on the work of his pen. Early on, the pastor's son
from Großsärchen had recognized that the medicine he had chosen to study and
whose baccalaureate he had acquired was not his inner profession. He, who remained
an unpractical scholar all his life, did not fit in with medical practice, and this,
especially in the condition in which she was then, did not fit in with the young man,
who was enthusiastic about the exact natural sciences. Proof,
Therefore, as the work on the great textbooks and repertories came to an end, he
readily accepted a new bookshop assignment, which he hoped would secure his
external life for a longer future. It was the editors of the "Hauslexikon", a "complete
handbook of practical life skills for all estates", which appeared in eight volumes in
the years 1834-1838. A large part of the articles, as his biographer Kuntze assures,
about a third of the whole and spread over the most diverse subjects, comes from
Fechner himself. Had he understood in the physical repertory of directing the
physicist of the subject about the results of the most difficult mathematical
investigations, Thus, in the encyclopedia of the dictionary, he knew how to reduce his
performance to the deepest bass tone of popularity, by providing the citizen and
countryman with good advice on how to treat his pocket watch so that costly repairs
would not be necessary too often. like.
But over the literary undertakings of Fechner, by which he hoped to secure his
outer life, an unreal hovered. By the time he wrote his great textbooks and repertories
of chemistry and physics, these sciences themselves were undergoing great internal
upheavals. In the same years, when he extensively worked on organic chemistry for
Thénard's work according to the available sources, Justus Liebig had founded the
laboratory in Giessen, with which a new era of this branch of chemical science
began. In physics, the optics, the thermodynamics and especially the electricity
learned partly complete transformations, some essential enrichments. Faraday's
brilliant star just appeared on the horizon of experimental physics when Fechner s
Galvanism's textbook and its physical Ropertorium came out. So it happened that
those works in which he had exhausted the best part of his youthful power became
outdated when they had scarcely appeared. He was even worse off with the
dictionary. The hope of being alone with it for a number of years of external worries
was not fulfilled. The work had set itself a wrong goal from the outset. It wanted to
do the same thing that Brockhaus's Conversation Encyclopedia was to the more
educated, to other peoples. This was perhaps a nice, but at the time, at least, an
illusory goal, because in the circles for which the work was intended, the need for
such an educational medium was barely felt. Fechner had sacrificed his time and
work in vain. Although this was apparent very soon, he nevertheless brought the
company to an end with unremitting dedication. When, on the departure of W. Weber
to Göttingen in the summer of 1834, a deputation of the faculty of philosophy
appeared to him and informed him that the time of his arduous struggle for existence
should now come to an end, the faculty had decided to make him a full professor of
physics At first he explained how a member of this deputation, our late Senior
Drobisch, once told me that he could not accept this election because he felt bound by
the duty assumed for the lexicon. Only at the urgent persuasion of his friends, to
whom no doubt also the publisher of the lexicon itself, his friend Härtel, belonged, he
decided,
But from the moment he achieved what he strives for, an independent position that
left him free to work independently, from that moment on his strength was
broken. The excess of work had exhausted her. Only with difficulty could he fulfill
his lecturing duties. For years, this condition dragged on. At this time it was when,
looking around for a task which was to satisfy his research instinct, without forcing
him to make greater mental efforts, to which he felt incapable, he fell into the field of
subjective light phenomena. Thus his beautiful investigations on the subjective
complementary colors, on the oscillating and the colored decay of the afterimages, on
the contrast sensations, works, on which research continues today in these areas. But
for him these observations became sinister. The general exhaustion of his nervous
system had now found the most indispensable organ for the symptoms of the
observing naturalist, the organ of vision. Now begins for him that three-year ordeal,
where he spent months in the dark room, which he sometimes tries to darken even
more through a blackened room into which he looks, only to be tormented by
subjective light phenomena where no escape is possible. His condition makes him
over-excitable against any external influence. Throughout the day, he lives alone,
isolated even from his neighbor. The doctors did not know any advice. But nature
helped itself. The exhausted nervous system rested, and when, gradually, through
influences which today we will safely attribute to a wholesome autosuggestion, the
organ of vision also opened again to the light, Fechner felt as if reborn. His increased
sense of life, which usually accompanies recovery from a serious illness, also took
possession of his intellectual activity.
But this work had become different now. The naturalist, who sometimes indulged
in philosophical dreams at idle hours, had become a philosopher. The ideas of his
new philosophy had, of course, long since moved within him. Already one of the
earliest of his Mises writings, the "Comparative Anatomy of the Angels" of 1825,
played with them in jesting form, which, however, as he later himself said, was by no
means meant to be joking everywhere. Ten years later, in the "Book of Life After
Death", artistically perhaps the most complete of all his works, he had already
anticipated in essential points the views which Zendavesta later elaborated. But only
now, in that high spirits after the serious illness, His views on God and the world, on
this world and on the other side became a coherent whole. In one of his last writings,
looking back on his life, he said of himself: "I do not belong to the number of those
whose life was made easy, but I find, by reviewing its whole context, and think
through the worst for I have partly spared worse things in the consequences, and
partly what is better in the consequences, and that had I achieved all the desires that
had been denied me, I would have remained poorer in more important relationships.
" I think we can say more: if that catastrophe had not occurred, forcibly dividing his
life into two halves, he might have increased his physical work by a few more
efficient researches.

II.

In order to properly appreciate Fechner's philosophical thoughts, one must first of

all consider them in their relationship to one another and in their relation to certain
unsolved scientific problems. Who is content to see the quintessence of this
philosophy in the fact that not only humans and animals, but also plants, the earth, the
other planets and the fixed stars are animated beings, and finally God above all these
souls as a world-soul throne, it will of course see in it little more than a fantastic
poetry which could claim no particular novelty. For such doctrines of the All-soul and
revival of nature have always come back in philosophy now and then. But also the
Weltanschauung Fechner ' s agree with these ancient mythological ideas in certain
results, the connection and the justification have become essentially different with
him. Nor has he acquired his philosophy from any of the older sources, but he is
essentially a philosopher who has become self-absorbed. To be sure, in his youth he
came into contact with Schelling's natural philosophy. He has read the first few
chapters of Oken's philosophy of nature and, as he later reports, has been surprised by
the magnificence of many thoughts. Besides, the book remained incomprehensible to
him, and as Dr. Mises, he vividly joined in the mockery of the naturalists about this
natural philosophy. After all, it may be that an initially latent inclination to certain
thoughts, in which the later Fechner reminiscent of Oken, stayed behind with
him. For the time being, however, this motif has been replaced by scientific
studies. They gave direction and method to his thinking, so that that arbitrary
mistreatment of scientific facts and concepts, such as Schelling and Oken were guilty
of, became impossible for him.
Fechner's scientific talent, as expressed in his various works related to this field,
was a highly peculiar one. It consisted in a union of plants, which is certainly a very
rare one in such form. On the one hand, he was captivated by the general laws of
natural phenomena, and he was highly gifted with the ability to reduce entangled
relationships to their simpler relationships through methodological analysis. He said
of himself that he was not a mathematician; and one will not be able to contradict this
strict judgment, though perhaps he has expected more in his life than most real
mathematicians. He was well able to dispose of the aids offered by mathematics, and
he occasionally used them far beyond the boundaries of the territories for which they
were originally intended. It was precisely in this transference to new problems that he
sometimes displayed an admirable mastery. But he was not a creative
mathematician. Where such a new course had immediately followed the changed
tasks, Fechner's ingenuity was exhausted in the adaptation of the existing aids to the
conditions that were offered on a case-by-case basis. On the other hand, he possessed
a less ingenious invention in the field of experimental methodology. He knew how to
trace back the principles often used by former observers to their principles and to
develop new, more perfect methods from them. This was a strong commitment to
accuracy, which was expressed above all in the methods he used from an early age to
combine numerous observations with the purpose of eliminating incidental influences
and observation errors. From the "measurements of the galvanic chain" to the
formation of the "psycho-physical methods of measurement" and the posthumous
work on the "collective gauge", Fechner's larger experimental or experimental
experimental methods constitute a series of brilliant testimonies to these rare and in
the nature of their operation highly peculiar attachment.
But in addition to this came another characteristic which is certainly not often
associated with that exact gift. This was his lively interest in the sensory world of
intuition, which, especially in the time when he was still enjoying an unclouded sight,
was for the observation of every single individual, even of the unexpected and
accidental, in which most of them pass carelessly; sharpened the senses. At the same
time, his aesthetic sense was particularly pleasing in the world of light and colors. It
was this quality that drew him early to an area far removed from those exact
examinations, which at that time was usually avoided because of his seeming
irregularity: the changeable world of the subjective optical world, yet for the one who
has once surrendered to it phenomena.
However, whatever these characteristics of the naturalist might have been
conducive to philosophers, they could not achieve works such as the "Book of
Afterlife" or "Zendavesta." Here, therefore, there is a certainly no less primitive,
though augmented by fate and environment: that deep religious feeling which filled
the whole being of this man, and at times resigned over his preoccupation with
scientific problems, but then always proved to be his own most lasting interest in life
proven. Certainly it is this religious sense that has made the naturalist only the
philosopher. Still, his philosophy would not have won its peculiar form,
However close it would be to try to conceive of the interaction of such qualities of
the scientific researcher and the religious thinker with the philosopher, a third
condition would still be lacking. It lies in a character trait of this personality, which
here and there already emerges in his scientific work, in his religious and
ecclesiastical position, but above all gave his philosophy its character and was
perhaps the most impressively felt in personal communication with him. I would
hardly find any other general expression for this trait than that of the absolute
prejudice and fearlessness of one's own conviction, I do not remember having ever
shared this quality with another man in a similar degree; a quality that I have ever
encountered, that I consider to be an undeniable gain of my life. Leibniz once said of
himself that he was inclined to agree with every restriction to any opinion he might
encounter. Fechner might have been able to claim with greater rights that he was
inclined to disagree with every view and without any restrictions. If an opinion of
general approval enjoyed or had respectable authority, it was only apt to arouse its
distrust. Because he was convinced that the habituation to traditional assumptions and
the belief in authority are the most dangerous and widespread obstacles of an
unbiased view of things. On the other hand, he could not be impressed by the boldest
presumption, by a contradictory hypothesis. He regarded them as well as the popular
views as an opinion worthy of scrutiny, which he therefore sought to refute, no less
than those first, with all the reasons at his command. "I am cautious in faith, but also
careful in disbelief," he once said of himself. The pleasure in the conflict of opinions
which was his own, therefore, was by no means the fact that he doubted everything
and still clung to his contradiction even when he had to divulge his counter-
reasons; but where that happened, which indeed seldom occurred, he was perfectly
ready to submit to the arguments put forward. Even less did his objective
contradiction ever combine with the slightest personal annoyance, but his polemic
was always shining with the purest benevolence. He could probably break off an
unsettled quarrel with the remark that the opinion put forward may have many things
in it and find their followers, but he could not accept them for himself. This turned
the dispute with him into an intellectual enjoyment of the rarest kind, and even from
an inconclusive such a speech tournament one never went away without lasting
profit. Even less did his objective contradiction ever combine with the slightest
personal annoyance, but his polemic was always shining with the purest
benevolence. He could probably break off an unsettled quarrel with the remark that
the opinion put forward may have many things in it and find their followers, but he
could not accept them for himself. This turned the dispute with him into an
intellectual enjoyment of the rarest kind, and even from an inconclusive such a
speech tournament one never went away without lasting profit. Even less did his
objective contradiction ever combine with the slightest personal annoyance, but his
polemic was always shining with the purest benevolence. He could probably break
off an unsettled quarrel with the remark that the opinion put forward may have many
things in it and find their followers, but he could not accept them for himself. This
turned the dispute with him into an intellectual enjoyment of the rarest kind, and even
from an inconclusive such a speech tournament one never went away without lasting
profit. The opinion put forward may have many things in it and find their followers,
but he can not accept them only for himself. This turned the dispute with him into an
intellectual enjoyment of the rarest kind, and even from an inconclusive such a
speech tournament one never went away without lasting profit. The opinion put
forward may have many things in it and find their followers, but he can not accept
them only for himself. This turned the dispute with him into an intellectual enjoyment
of the rarest kind, and even from an inconclusive such a speech tournament one never
went away without lasting profit.
The only thing that could arouse him to a certain extent passionately was the
adherence to dogmas, if it did not happen out of his own inner conviction. Religious
and scientific dogmas were his equal in this respect. Although he called himself a
Christian with full conviction, he did not recognize a single ecclesiastical dogma as
binding on his faith. And although he was so firmly convinced of the strict laws of
the phenomenal world, as the precondition of every scientific knowledge, that he did
not exempt the human will from this lawfulness, there was not a single law of nature
recognized by natural science.
One has to keep in mind the personal character of Fechner; In my opinion, one has
to show something of the prejudice that he possessed even of his philosophy, if one
wants to do justice to it. In the entrance to his "Zendavesta" he observes that he
basically does not use any other logical means than that which also uses science, and
besides which there can be none at all, as long as one remains strictly on the ground
of experience, but on his own to seek a coherent world view. These two aids are
the induction and the analogyInduction, which gives general laws from individual
facts, and the analogy which, according to the objects of experience known to us,
gives rise to other, unfamiliar judgments. Induction and analogy in this sense are not
just the individual empirical sciences, but also the ordinary world-view founded on
them, which is the one brought forward in science, and which is therefore generally
used even in the broader circles of the educated public. In the last, perhaps most
impressive of his philosophical writings, in the denial of traditional views, Fechner
has this ordinary world- view the night viewThe Night View, because it allows us to
enjoy this whole world of colors and sounds, sensations and feelings, all that makes
us enjoy the happiness of this life in the intuition of nature and in the intercourse with
our fellow human beings, as a temporary subjective experience sees an ever-renewing
illusion, while the world itself should be a chaos enveloped in impenetrable darkness
and dead silence. Nothing but vibrating atoms and restless, monotonous movements,
and in this chaos only isolated light and sounding points, the sentient beings, who
appear for a while, only to sink again into the surrounding night! This is, as Fechner
says, the world view of the naturalists, but also theology has without resistance
appropriated, without noticing,
If this view of the night is unsatisfactory in the highest degree, it is by no means, as
it is asserted, the result of scientific knowledge, but in truth it has arisen only because
science has remained halfway in its inductions and analogies, and that is why An
incomplete picture of the world which may be fit for the derivation of certain
contexts, but which turns into a false one as soon as one regards those limited
contexts as the full reality of things. Fechner seeks to prove the error of this "night
view" primarily by their utter inability to cope with two problems, problems that have
always been among the deepest and most difficult of philosophy. One is the problem
of lifethe other the consciousness .
 III.

How does life come about? According to the prevailing view, organic compounds
have emerged from the inorganic matter of nature somewhere and at some time under
conditions unknown to us. The organisms are thus products of the dead, lifeless
nature. Consequently, as Fechner has remarked, all efforts have been made, in some
way, to produce at least organisms of the simplest sort from inorganic matter. But this
effort has still been in vain. Instead of concluding that the living never arises from the
lifeless, one is satisfied with the assumption that in earlier periods of our earth there
were conditions for the formation of the organic, which no longer exist today, and
which we do not once artificially produced in our laboratories; yet, as far as we can
infer it, the former conditions of our earth are by no means more favorable to the life
of the organisms than they are today. On the other hand, one goes by the fact that,
conversely, it is the organisms which, at first, give rise to inorganic substances by
their metabolism and then by their destruction, pass unnoticed. And yet, from the
very beginning, this experience makes it probable that the ordinary view should be
reversed to its opposite: it is not the living that has come from the lifeless, but the
lifeless that has come out of the living. who let inorganic substances emerge first
through their metabolism and then through their demise, disobeying it. And yet, from
the very beginning, this experience makes it probable that the ordinary view should
be reversed to its opposite: it is not the living that has come from the lifeless, but the
lifeless that has come out of the living. who let inorganic substances emerge first
through their metabolism and then through their demise, disobeying it. And yet, from
the very beginning, this experience makes it probable that the ordinary view should
be reversed to its opposite: it is not the living that has come from the lifeless, but the
lifeless that has come out of the living.
If we accept this statement, we will inevitably be forced to conclude that the living
being from which all the living beings of our earth once sprung originated is the earth
itself. The earth, which we therefore regard not merely in the poetic image, but in the
world real and true sense of our mothershould call. We smile compassionately at the
faith of wild peoples, who think that people are made of stones. And what will we do
better if we regard not only the humans, but also the animals and plants, all life on
earth as a precipitate that has accidentally deposited on a dead mass of rock? We have
immersed ourselves in the study of the earth globes in our classrooms until we regard
the earth itself as a globe on which the mountains, rivers, and oceans with their living
population are merely externally painted. Fechner illustrates the absurdity of this
opinion through the dream of a naturalist. He sees himself on the bank of a clear
water, in which a green ball, floating in two opposite places, swirls about. Egg, thinks
the naturalist, what could that be? Certainly an unusually large infusorium! And he is
already looking forward to the Mountain of Honor, which will be given to him as a
new Ehrenberg when describing this new species. He brings the ball under the
microscope. There he discovers a trimming of green fringes and eyelashes in all sorts
of inks. But when he applies stronger magnifications, it turns out that the new infusor
is not composed of cells, as he had expected, but that as elemental parts on its surface
trees, flowers, sheep, horses, dogs, humans dangle about - and suddenly discovered
he himself in one of the moving dots. Then the naturalist opened a light. A creature,
he thought, to which I myself belong with all plants and animals, such a creature can
not possibly be anything but a living being. Of course, the other naturalists he said
that laughed at him. But who was right?
The chief objection that is made to the life of the earth is to point out the want of all
the morphological and chemical components which we regard as necessary for the
life-process. The rock masses of the earth show no cells, no tissues and organs, no
proteins. But, Fechner asks, is it necessary for the earth as a whole to once again have
all the organic products that it already possesses above in the organisms it
produces? Certainly, if we call the earth organic, then we shall have to call it in a
different sense than the individual organic individuals that are their constituents. We
then have to regard it as an individual of a higher order, as the like-like being, the
other similar world-bodies, not face the subordinate earthly organisms. From this
point of view, however, we shall not be able at all to lay down the mark for the
distinction between the living and the lifeless, in any structural and material
differences, but only in the general properties of the motions which give rise to the
phenomena to be observed on the various bodies. Now all movements are of organic
as well as inorganic nature from which emerge the phenomena to be observed on the
various bodies. Now all movements are of organic as well as inorganic nature from
which emerge the phenomena to be observed on the various bodies. Now all
movements are of organic as well as inorganic naturesubjected to two great
principles, the first of which is fairly universally recognized, the second often
overlooked or at least not properly appreciated: the principle of causality and that
of finality or expediency, According to the principle of causality, everywhere and at
all times, insofar as the same circumstances re-occur, the same results are
repeated. True, this principle governs all nature, the living as well as the lifeless, and
within the former also the spiritual world; but it is, on its own, too indefinite to help
us to establish more closely the character of the individual phenomena, and hence the
peculiar differences between the inorganic and the organic. The situation is different
with the principle of finality. It follows, just as that of causality, from the general
consideration of the course of natural phenomena. But while this only emphasizes the
general law of appearances, that signifies the direction in which the law
runs. Accordingly, causality and finality are not at all contradictory, but they
complement one another, and it must necessarily be assumed that the individual laws,
which govern the course of phenomena according to the causal principle, at the same
time contain the direction which marks the final principle in its course. The
contradictory coexistence of both principles essentially consists in the fact that the
final principle itself is a consequence of the conditions that exist for the validity of
the causal principle in the world. Fechner later referred to this general final principle
as a "principle of stability" following a consideration by Zöllner in his book "On the
Nature of the Comets". But the thought itself is Fechner's property. He is clearly in
the "Zendavesta" pronounced and earlier, in a 1849 held in our society speech "About
the causal law", indicated. The final principle is that, in nature, any system limited to
the outside and therefore relatively closed, as well as any relatively independent part
of it, seeks, in a shorter or longer time, to return to the same state it formerly
possessed. Thus, within a salt crystal, the individual salt particles regularly oscillate
around the same equilibrium positions due to their heat state. Thus, the planets in
their orbit around the sun always take the same positions. And so in the organisms the
same life processes are renewed periodically, partly within one and the same being,
partly in alternation of the generations. But in none of the systems or parts of nature
that oppose us in nature is the validity of this principle absolute, but everywhere only
an approximate one. The regular vibrations of the molecules change as their heat state
changes. The planetary motions experience disturbances and as a result very slow
deviations from their stability. The life-process of the organisms gradually depletes
their state of equilibrium and, at the end of it, brings about their total abolition. But
the more comprehensive a system is, the more must its approximation approach an
absolute uniformity in the recurrence of the same states, because the disturbances
which originate in external influences diminish to the same degree.
However, two forms of such a tendency to stability can be distinguished, a simpler
and more intricate one. An example of simple stability is provided by any inorganic
molecule: the particles of the crystal, which vibrate around their equilibrium
positions, immediately return to the same state. Examples of intricate stability are the
organisms and their elemental parts. Each cell is kept in an approximately stable state
by the processes of substance uptake and release, and the same applies to the whole
assembled organism, and finally to a succession of organisms in which the same
organic forms recreate in the alternation of birth and death. But the tendency to
stability comes to the fore here, when we compare larger series of changing states; In
addition, the organism is always preserved in such a way that more stable inorganic
compounds emerge from the less stable organic compounds. The general tendency for
stability is therefore linked to a tendency to transition to more stable states, organic to
inorganic compounds.
Which of these forms are now subordinated to the cosmic systems? Our earth, in its
movement around the sun, returns to the same positions with a very close approach,
on the one hand, the perfect stability of the inorganic bodies. On the other hand, in
the complex course of events, it corresponds to the periodicity of the phenomena of
life. Like our own body, the earth is a whole that is externally closed by a definite
form, and that is intrinsically linked by the power of forces and purpose-relations,
facing the similar independent and self-contained whole in the other world-
bodies. Likewise, the play of the processes on her spatially and temporally divided
into larger and smaller, regularly recurring periods. If, therefore, we see the essential
criterion of the organic in this regular organization and renewal of the processes of
motion, there can be no doubt, according to Fechner, that the change of the cosmic
motions is the most perfect example of the concept of organic motion. But this
perfection of the organic periodicity of the cosmic processes is based precisely on the
fact that in them the intricate composition of interlocking periods brings together an
almost complete stability of them, just as on Earth it belongs only to the inorganic
molecules. From this follows, however, the compulsion to distinguish this organic life
of the cosmic systems as a peculiar one from that of the individual organisms and
their elementary parts. Fechner calls that that the change of cosmic motions is the
most perfect example of the concept of organic motion in general. But this perfection
of the organic periodicity of the cosmic processes is based precisely on the fact that in
them the intricate composition of interlocking periods brings together an almost
complete stability of them, just as on Earth it belongs only to the inorganic
molecules. From this follows, however, the compulsion to distinguish this organic life
of the cosmic systems as a peculiar one from that of the individual organisms and
their elementary parts. Fechner calls that that the change of cosmic motions is the
most perfect example of the concept of organic motion in general. But this perfection
of the organic periodicity of the cosmic processes is based precisely on the fact that in
them the intricate composition of interlocking periods brings together an almost
complete stability of them, just as on Earth it belongs only to the inorganic
molecules. From this follows, however, the compulsion to distinguish this organic life
of the cosmic systems as a peculiar one from that of the individual organisms and
their elementary parts. Fechner calls that But this perfection of the organic periodicity
of the cosmic processes is based precisely on the fact that in them the intricate
composition of interlocking periods brings together an almost complete stability of
them, just as on Earth it belongs only to the inorganic molecules. From this follows,
however, the compulsion to distinguish this organic life of the cosmic systems as a
peculiar one from that of the individual organisms and their elementary
parts. Fechner calls that But this perfection of the organic periodicity of the cosmic
processes is based precisely on the fact that in them the intricate composition of
interlocking periods brings together an almost complete stability of them, just as on
Earth it belongs only to the inorganic molecules. From this follows, however, the
compulsion to distinguish this organic life of the cosmic systems as a peculiar one
from that of the individual organisms and their elementary parts. Fechner calls that to
distinguish this organic life of the cosmic systems as a peculiar one from that of the
individual organisms and their elemental parts. Fechner calls that to distinguish this
organic life of the cosmic systems as a peculiar one from that of the individual
organisms and their elemental parts. Fechner calls thatcosmo-organic , this
the molecular- organic, But according to the causal relation in which life on earth
makes the earth itself, it is necessary, as he thinks, for the molecular organic to have
necessarily originated from the cosm-organic movements; and, according to the
tendency of the transition from less stable to more stable compounds, which can be
observed everywhere in life processes, it can be assumed that the formation of
molecular organic matter from cosmological movements coincided at the same time
with the formation of inorganic matter. Thus the earth no longer appears as an
external place of residence, but in the literal sense as the mother of the living beings
on it. And the Earth, for its part, is only one link in the great cosmo-organic
boundaries of our solar system, which in turn subordinates itself to the total life of the
universe as the ultimate all-embracing unity.
 IV.

Like the question of the origin of life, Fechner believes that the ordinary view of
the world is also perplexed by the second according to the origin of consciousness. It
lets the consciousness emerge from the unconscious without giving an account of
how that is possible. Of course we are far more dependent on analogies for this
question than on the previous one. For we can not look into the consciousness of
another being, since everyone is immediately certain of his own consciousness. The
mistake and the unsatisfactory nature of the ordinary view of the world lies in the fact
that it remains here at the next and outermost analogies. The animals are ascribed a
soul and therefore a consciousness; because they have a nervous system similar to
ours, while one does not know in the least how this nervous system comes into the
possession of consciousness, and why it should differ in this property from other
compounds. With the same right, with which one concludes: The animals need nerves
to sensation, so the plants will have such necessary, with the same right one could
say: The violins need strings to sound, so the flutes will need strings to sound. Instead
of determining the conditions under which the consciousness of a being comes about,
according to its own peculiar circumstances, one resorts to the conditions which
apply to a completely different kind of being. Of course, if the plant has sensation, it
can not come about through nerves; but who has ever proved that there is no
sensation at all without nerves? One is usually prepared to attribute sensation to the
protozoans, who likewise have no nerves, because of certain expressions of
life. However, the life expressions of the plants are in some ways different from those
of the simplest animals. But who tells us that sensations can only be betrayed by
animal expressions of life? To demand that the earth, the planets, the brain, and the
nervous system must possess is a completely inadmissible inference from the part to
the whole. In the brains of the men and beasts that belong to it, the earth already
possesses a multitude of consciousness organs of the required kind. When it embraces
all its creatures as a whole,
If the familiar assumption is based only on inadequate external analogies, then it
owes its answer not only to the question of the origin of consciousness in general, but
also to the other according to the causes of the change of the phenomena of
consciousness. The ideas come and go in us. At a given moment our consciousness
always has very limited content. At the same time, it may soon consist of memories
of past perceptions; on the other hand, a direct sense impression, if our attention does
not turn to us, may at first remain unconscious, and then later emerge in
consciousness. Where then come the ideas which, having disappeared out of
consciousness, reenter it? And where do those go who disappear from him? Fechner
answers: Like individual life only as a diversion from a more comprehensive life
process, consciousness, whether it be the first emergence of the same in an individual
or the becoming conscious of an individual idea, can only be understood from the fact
that every single consciousness is at one more general consciousness, in which his
experiences submerge, and from which they can rise again. However, we can only
think of the universal consciousness upon which every individual consciousness of
earthly beings rises as tied to the total life of our earth. The first genesis of our
consciousness is therefore akin to the awakening from sleep. In fact, at birth, the
human being brings a lot of mental faculties to the world, which can be interpreted as
a dark memory. Just as the awakening from sleep in a certain sense repeats the
emergence of the single consciousness, so the walking and coming of the ideas, and
finally even the states of the changing direction of attention, are processes in which
the alternation of sleep and waking is repeated to the individual contents of
consciousness takes place. All these inner experiences are subordinated to the image
of the threshold of consciousness. Above this threshold, as a major wave of
prolonged period, the awake consciousness rises in its whole connection; and then
above this main wave there are still changing harmonics of a shorter period, the
individual sensations and ideas which make up the special contents of
consciousness, and which corresponds to such a lying above the main threshold
"upper threshold". Accordingly, that main threshold, as well as this upper threshold,
is not to be regarded as a border separating the consciousness from the unconscious,
but only as one which separates a more limited from a more comprehensive
consciousness. But as the more comprehensive consciousness will have its threshold,
so wherever a new individual consciousness arises, we can interpret this as a process
of elevation above a threshold. The consciousness of the earth thus similarly includes
the units of consciousness of the living creatures belonging to it, as our own
consciousness contains its present experiences; and that entire consciousness has a
treasure of memories that includes the whole history of the earth and its living
beings, just as our own consciousness looks back on the context of our individual
life. The earth itself, however, as it integrates itself as a cosmo-organic member of the
solar system and then with the universe, again forms as a unity of consciousness only
one member in a series of further ascending forms of consciousness, the highest of
which is the all-encompassing total consciousness of the universe itself, the divine
Consciousness.
Even to this divine consciousness, in which all other units of consciousness are
contained from the highest to the lowest, as its individual experiences, Fechner now
applies, though nowhere explicitly, the principle of the threshold, and it forms this at
the same time a very important feature of his concept of God, by which this differs
from most similar philosophical conceptions. To be sure, everything which lies below
the threshold for the lower units of consciousness should be for the highest
consciousness above the threshold, since only such a preservation and renewal of
such contents is assured for the lower consciousness. But Fechner does not believe
that the divine Consciousness carries within itself the whole future of the
universe. Rather, the idea of development, which supports his conception of the
origin of life as well as of consciousness, urges him to apply this idea to God
himself. This is done by attributing to the divine Consciousness, from the beginning,
a general plan of the world operating in the cosmic laws of causality and finality, but
regarding the outward configuration of this world-plan in the course of the cosmic
event as a series of new experiences within the divine Consciousness. He compares
God to an artist, to whom his work, from the outset, hovers in his general outlines,
but who by no means foresees every single stage of this execution. In this sense,
according to him, the divine consciousness develops in a similar way to the
human, only from the beginning, of course, more unified, more planned, more
lawful; and God is as good to him as the product of his own experiences, which are at
the same time the experiences of the universe, just as the individual is the product of
his life's fates. This thought seems all the more impressive to him, since at the same
time he makes it possible for him to think of man himself as the co-helper and bearer
of the works of God, and the evil in the world and sin as alien to the original nature of
God, but but to regard the perfection of creation and the creation of the good and the
beautiful as an indispensable part of the world order. These are thoughts reminiscent
of the two great German theosophists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with
whom his world-view has many features in common, to Paracelsus and Jakob
Bohme. But he also touches here with the philosophers of his own time, whom he
was otherwise averse to science because of their sinfulness, with Schelling and even
with Hegel, without these relations, of course, having crossed the threshold of
consciousness for him.

V.

If life and consciousness are never created, but are original activities of the
universe, this immediately suggests the idea that both are in truth only different
expressions of one and the same event. In fact, that's Fechner's view. What is given to
us externally as a coherent life movement, which, however, diverges into an extensive
order of spatial and temporal processes, we grasp inwardly as the intense unity of our
consciousness. Just as a circle, which we first consider from a point beyond its
periphery and then from its center, appears different and yet is the same circle, life
processes and processes of consciousness are the same bodily-spiritual events, each
time viewed only from a different point of view. For the external point of view, the
whole decomposes into a manifold of individual parts; for the inner point of view, it
merges into the unity of consciousness. Both points of view complement each other,
but both capture the whole reality. For Fechner there is no unknowable "thing in
itself" whose mere modes of appearance would be those two conceptions, but the
world is that bodily-spiritual Being itself, as we recognize it directly in our own body
and in our own soul. Accordingly, the soul is not a particular, unexpanded being,
which would have its seat in a certain point of the brain. Fechner juxtaposes this
monadological or atomistic with his synechological view. After her, the whole living
body is animated, just as the soul life is based on the interaction of all organs. Those
movements to which the individual phenomena of consciousness are directly attached
are called "psychophysical movements" by Fechner in his later writings. Just as life
and inspiration did not originate but were original, so too is the psychophysical
movement the original one. The cosm-organic processes are all psychophysical
movements. But with the differentiation of the cosmo-organic into the molecular
organic, the individual psychophysical movements that underlie the individual forms
of consciousness of the living beings have developed. Accordingly, psychophysical
movement and consciousness will henceforth correspond. Every single process of
consciousness is bound to a particular psychophysical movement; and just as a
conception as a memory picture can only renew itself because it continues to exist
under the threshold of the individual consciousness in a corresponding overall
consciousness as a real idea, so the associated movement can only repeat itself,
because once it has arisen, it never goes down again. but can only temporarily be
pushed back. Fechner illustrates this unlimited duration of psychophysical
movements through the image of the wave, which, when crossing on a water level
with other parts, disappears for the eye, but in reality continues in the composition of
the movements. because it continues to exist under the threshold of the individual
consciousness in a corresponding overall consciousness as a real representation, so
the associated movement can only repeat itself, because once it has arisen, it never
goes down again, but can only be temporarily suppressed. Fechner illustrates this
unlimited duration of psychophysical movements through the image of the wave,
which, when crossing on a water level with other parts, disappears for the eye, but in
reality continues in the composition of the movements. because it continues to exist
under the threshold of the individual consciousness in a corresponding overall
consciousness as a real representation, so the associated movement can only repeat
itself, because once it has arisen, it never goes down again, but can only be
temporarily suppressed. Fechner illustrates this unlimited duration of psychophysical
movements through the image of the wave, which, when crossing on a water level
with other parts, disappears for the eye, but in reality continues in the composition of
the movements.
This picture, of course, suggests the question of whether or not a psychophysical
movement can finally be transformed in such a way that it does not reappear as the
same; and this question inevitably awakens the other: how does it stand with the
continuance of our consciousness when life stops?
Fechner acknowledges that it is impossible to answer this question by considering
psychophysical movements as such. But he thinks that because of our ignorance of
these movements, physical analysis can not claim to follow their
destinies. Accordingly, there remains nothing to contemplate but the psychic side of
events, from which the inference to the corresponding physical side from the context
of the two results automatically. Here he has the inevitable proof of the prolonged
continuity of the processes of consciousness in the extension of human consciousness
over an entire, long human life. While the body of man continually renews as a result
of the processes of metabolism, so that finally no atom has remained the same, the
memory of the old man goes back to his earliest childhood. As he thinks, this
becomes comprehensible only when the psychophysical movements that have
emerged can be transferred to new and new body elements.
But if, in this way, the continuance of our psychic experiences and their
psychophysical substrates is not tied to certain persistent substances, then we have no
reason to suppose that they are bound to the preservation of our body. Of course, the
dead body is no longer capable of the psychophysical movements necessary for the
development of sensations and ideas. But why should not these movements somehow
continue in the world around us? Fechner, in fact, is forced to accept this assumption
by his whole conception of the individual consciousness as a "harmonic wave" above
a "sub-wave" of a more comprehensive consciousness, which is below its
threshold. This would no longer be consciousness if the experiences of the individual
spirit did not exist in it; And to these experiences belongs, as the most essential, the
consciousness of one's own personality. A disappearance of self-consciousness in a
general consciousness therefore seems unthinkable to him. After all, every individual
consciousness that has come to develop essentially belongs to the experiences of this
general consciousness. But he thinks he may accept that the barriers will be removed
by union with the latter, which are set to the mental life by the bondage to a limited
physical organization. The otherworldly life is therefore in truth a worldly life for
him. It is, however, analogously a higher stage of our present existence, as this itself
is a higher stage to the pre-birth dream state preceding it. Man does not live once, but
lives three times on earth. The first stage of life is a constant sleep, the second a
change between sleep and waking, the third an eternal waking. Not in distant,
inaccessible spaces above the sky or below the earth live our departed but in the
midst of us. We can, bound to the barriers of our body, only in thoughts, in memories
with them. But they live with clear consciousness around us and in us. For some of
our thoughts may arise through their direct participation in our spiritual life. And that
is "the great righteousness of creation, that each man creates the conditions of his
future being." The actions are not repaid to man by external rewards or punishments,
there is no heaven and no hell in the ordinary sense of Christians, Jews and Gentiles
Where the soul would come after death - but after having survived the great stage
illness, death, it quietly develops further on the earth after the immutable, every later
stage above the ground of the earlier constructive consistency of nature on earth and
to a higher being, and, depending on whether man was good or bad, noble or
common, diligent or idle, In the next life he will find a healthy or sick, a strong or
weak organism as his property. , , , However long the untrue, the evil, and the
common will continue to work and wrestle with the true, the beautiful, the right, it
will at last be conquered by its ever-growing power, destroyed by its own
consequences struck down with growing force. " He who has left behind a treasure of
love, respect, reverence, admiration, and remembrance in the memory of man, wins
with death what he has left behind for this life of the world, and wins the collective
consciousness for all that the remnant of Thinking of him, he lifts the bushel, of
which he only counts individual grains in life.
By thus merging this world and the hereafter into a single everlasting life, whose
place is the earth for man, in whose spiritual being he participates, and which forms
for him the mediation with the all-embracing divine being, this night-view of the
ruling ones automatically refutes itself Science that sees only a passing illusion in the
luminous and sounding nature. Certainly, in order for the light to be seen, the sound
heard, there must be a seeing and hearing being. But is not the whole of nature
surrounding us such a being, which is divided into its individual parts in the
individual creatures which it has produced, and whose lives are inalienable for
them? That is why it is the natural view that preceded that desolate view of nature in
modern science. and that will endure when it has set, that the ray of light, the sound-
wave, perceive itself, because the whole world is illuminated by the same seeing, is
reverberated by the same hearing, which makes man rejoice in the surrounding nature
, This is the day view which Fechner contrasts with the night view, and which he not
only considers compatible with the results of natural science, but which he is also
convinced that they alone are the mystery of the hereafter in accordance with the
context of our experiences and insights Way solved. Of course, this day view, as he
concedes, can not be proved any more than the night view can be proved. But once
faith has been called to help fill in the gaps of knowledge, thus he does not tolerate
any doubt that the day's view is the more comforting faith. Whatever the case may be,
the unshakable faith in his world-view, in any case, filled him with a feeling of
happiness that made him one of the happiest people who ever lived, despite all the
hardships that brought him existence. He said of himself: "Had not the darkest and
seemingly hopeless time of my life been preceded by the first dawn of the day's view
in the ideas of the" book of life after death, "I would not have endured that
time." This is expressed convincingly in some of the poems that have just been
written during these dullest days. So in that "song in tribulation": Whatever the case
may be, the unshakable faith in his world-view, in any case, filled him with a feeling
of happiness that made him one of the happiest people who ever lived, despite all the
hardships that brought him existence. He said of himself: "Had not the darkest and
seemingly hopeless time of my life been preceded by the first dawn of the day's view
in the ideas of the" book of life after death, "I would not have endured that
time." This is expressed convincingly in some of the poems that have just been
written during these dullest days. So in that "song in tribulation": Whatever the case
may be, the unshakable faith in his world-view, in any case, filled him with a feeling
of happiness that made him one of the happiest people who ever lived, despite all the
hardships that brought him existence. He said of himself: "Had not the darkest and
seemingly hopeless time of my life been preceded by the first dawn of the day's view
in the ideas of the" book of life after death, "I would not have endured that
time." This is expressed convincingly in some of the poems that have just been
written during these dullest days. So in that "song in tribulation": that, in spite of all
the hardships that brought him existence, made him one of the happiest people who
ever lived. He said of himself: "Had not the darkest and seemingly hopeless time of
my life been preceded by the first dawn of the day's view in the ideas of the" book of
life after death, "I would not have endured that time." This is expressed convincingly
in some of the poems that have just been written during these dullest days. So in that
"song in tribulation": that, in spite of all the hardships that brought him existence,
made him one of the happiest people who ever lived. He said of himself: "Had not the
darkest and seemingly hopeless time of my life been preceded by the first dawn of the
day's view in the ideas of the" book of life after death, "I would not have endured that
time." This is expressed convincingly in some of the poems that have just been
written during these dullest days. So in that "song in tribulation":
When everything darkens,
the appearance is extinguished,
 The lonely still sparkled
From the last starlet;
0 think that a sun
is still alive,
a new day of bliss
before you;
or in the closing lines to the booklet "On the three motives and reasons of faith":
In God melne soul rests;
The angel whole crowd
In his rich heights
I see the light shining,
And one carries me even.

The thought of the revival of nature and the omnipresence of God in her pervades
all these songs. The poetic most beautiful expression has probably found this thought
in a "morning and spring" named poem:
God, I would like to pray to you,
It prays for me;
But do not I find the words that
do it,
yourself, how do I find you?
As questioningly so my heart
begged,
went secretly through the hall:
What in us after you lovingly
stretches,
God is only himself.
In you, too, he stirs his hands,
They stretch out after us,
Do not seek him where the world
ends,
With you God is in the house.

VI.

The time when Fechner's philosophical writings first appeared in public was the
most unfavorable for their effect. When the three volumes of Zendavesta, the most
comprehensive account of his views, appeared in 1861, quite different interests
dominated the scientific world. Natural philosophy had thoroughly fiascoed, and the
star of Hegelian philosophy had faded; The pessimist Schopenhauer in Frankfurt was
still waiting in vain for the resurrection of his forgotten work, which no one else
believed in at that time. Ludwig Feuerbach and in the following years the
physiological materialism that was changing in his footsteps met the popular
philosophical needs, while the stricter science withdrew to its specialties, and
generally viewed philosophy as a superseded position. How could a work that already
announced itself on the title as a doctrine of the things of heaven and the hereafter
appear as something other than a fantastic dream that has nothing to do with science
at all!
Fechner has suffered severely from the unfavorable times. He never tired of
proclaiming the convictions he had won, and through which he was happy, over and
over again in a new form of the world. He let Zendavesta follow smaller writings in
the hope that the shorter form of diffusion of his thoughts would be more
conducive. In the preface to the treatise On the Question of the Soul he says: For the
first time in his Little Life Book after Death, he exclaimed to an audience that could
not quite get on with the bed of old views: "Get up! " When he was not heard, he said
again and again: "Get up!" "Now I'm calling a fifth time, and when I live, I'll get up
for the sixth and seventh time!" call, and it will always be the same, get up! ' his. But
the call to wake a sleeping world requires a strong breath; I'm just a breath in that
breath. "
Most he protects himself against the name of a fantasist. A fantasist, he thinks, is
rightly called the one who, as somewhere in heaven or on earth, accepts things that
contradict the laws of the phenomenal world that have been seized, and for which no
reasons can be shown in the context of experience. In this sense, z. For example, the
doctrine of transmigration of souls is fantastic, or fantastic, to suppose that the human
soul continues to live in a sun or a planet, or anywhere else in a distant
world. Therefore, the whole of the prevailing religious world-view is fantastic,
because it does not recognize any mediations or relations between the world of our
present and of our future existence. But show me, he asks, the point where my
opinion contradicts the established facts! You will not find this point anywhere. On
the contrary, what I teach is based on the intuition of real nature and of real
life. However, it is not itself contained in this reality of things, which we can
immediately grasp. But philosophy is not at all a matter of knowledge for him, but of
faith. One can not prove a world-view how to prove a mathematical proposition, and
one can not empirically show it how to observe a natural phenomenon. In this respect
philosophy and religion are on the same ground. At the same time philosophy is in
the middle of religion and science. She has to reconcile both by developing a
worldview
One sees that Fechner places a different task on philosophy than it would be given
by all those who regard this task as scientific. Of the great philosophers of the past,
there is hardly one called Fechner's writings more seldom than Kant. Kant's claim,
which has since remained an axiom of scientific philosophy, before any statement of
the nature of things, must be made In particular, Fechner's philosophy has remained
completely untouched by this demand of our ability to cognize such statements. One
would look in vain for something which, as epistemology or ethics in the scientific
sense, as a critical investigation of the principles of human action, could be
addressed. Therefore, one would also measure this philosophy with a false standard if
one wanted to apply it to scientific philosophy. Basically she does not want to
be. Rather, it consists in a reinterpretation of the religious beliefs as well as in a
supplement of the scientific results, whereby that reinterpretation and
supplementation are to be made in such a way that faith and knowledge become a
single, harmonious, instinct for knowledge as well as the desire for happiness Uniting
people with a satisfactory worldview. That is why Fechner's philosophy is essentially
a philosophy of religion or, perhaps even more accurately, theodicy. But it is not a
theodicy in Leibniz's sense. She does not try to reconcile the Christian system of
dogma with a philosophy that initially emerged independently of it. Fechner is
completely free to dogma. It is for him a shell that hides the religious core of the
Christian faith more often than protects. All the more does this core itself count as an
inalienable good of humanity.
One will have to give the Fechner after all, if he rejects the name of a fantasist. In
fact, his philosophy is imaginative, but it is not fantastic in the sense of a game of
fantasy that arbitrarily changes reality. Of course, everywhere it offers mere
possibilities of thinking. However, she does not want to make more money. Fechner
sees the justification of this point of view in the fact that faith is not at all a separate
realm apart from knowledge, but that it is in the midst of this, indispensable for
combining and supplementing its constituents. If we suppose that other people have a
consciousness similar to our own, or that in distant spaces and times of the universe
no less than in the world around us the law of causality applies, Such conditions,
which are indispensable to science, are basically only a matter of faith. Ultimately the
assumptions about matter and its forces, about the most general laws of nature and
spiritual life, betray themselves as beliefs that by no means have any unanimity been
attained in them. Obviously, some of them are considered safe only because they
have become accustomed to them. At this point, Fechner's philosophy begins. He
demands that one strictly differentiate between the actual knowledge and the mere
belief, and that one does not accept belief contents as true, because they are handed
down to us or in general validity. Rather, as indispensable as faith is in supplementing
knowledge, so only this could be regarded as the criterion of a legitimate belief that
he could bring about such a supplement in a satisfactory manner. This criterion now
fails, according to its firm conviction, in the beliefs of the ordinary view of the world
sanctioned by modern science. On the other hand, he sees it fully fulfilled in his own
view of the world, which in its most essential relationships is the reversal of them. It
is the consciousness of this antithesis, combined with the firm belief in the delightful
content of his teaching, that gives Fechner's philosophical writings a peculiar
charm. He does not just want to convince by arguments, but he has something of the
spirit of a prophet in himself,

VII.

But even if Fechner did not tire of giving his wake-up call over and over again, he
could not help but realize that, apart from the participation his smaller popular
writings found in individual religious minds, his philosophy was nonexistent In other
circles it exercised an urgent force, and indeed, what was most painful for it, it went
unnoticed by the scientific world, by official philosophy as well as by natural
science. Another, perhaps, annoyed at such failure, may have renounced further
attempts to gain his conviction. Not so Fechner. In the confidence with which his own
firm belief filled him, he did not let go of pursuing his goal. Yet, in the last thirty
years of his life, part of the character of his work has changed. In the main works he
published during this period, if I may use the term, he changed the tactics of his
procedure; In fact, he changed them so much, chiefly in the most important of these
works, in the Elements of Psychophysics, that for a superficial consideration the
purpose itself might appear as another.
Nowhere is this as clear as comparing psychophysics with Zendavesta, published
ten years earlier. Wherever we may open the Zendavesta, we find ourselves in the
sphere of mystical-theosophical speculation, in a not philosophical as well as poetic
world-view. We move only in heaven and in the hereafter. Even the earth with
everything that lives on it has only one meaning for this book, because it belongs to
the "things of the sky". In psychophysics we walk the path of sober and exact
investigations. Purely empirical considerations, carefully elaborated methods of
experimental design and elimination of errors, and finally mathematical legal
formulations, which strictly follow the existing test results, follow one
another. Should not you. believe that in the "Elements" an exact spirit of the first
order, with all the prudence and mathematician practiced, had systematically
expanded a new field of knowledge; but in the Zendavesta, has this same spirit
poetically fashioned a dream-world which has basically nothing to do with those
exact psychophysical works nor with the same author's "Maßbestimmungen der
galvanischen Kette"? But anyone who has read the last chapters of psychophysics and
who has read Zendavesta completely must come back from that opinion. It becomes
obvious that psychophysics for Fechner himself was nothing but the most
comprehensive and thorough attempt he made. to give exact justification to the world
view developed in Zendaveata on the side of the postulated relations of the physical
and spiritual world, and thus to elevate, at least within the limits drawn by
experience, from the sphere of mere faith to that of knowledge. But psychophysics
does not confine itself to this task, but sounds in the whole world-view developed in
Zendavesta, in the doctrine of God and the world as well as in the conception of body
and soul, since this more limited relation, like the one Psychophysics seeks to
demonstrate, directly to that all-encompassing back shoot. So, the more you get into
these works, the more it becomes clearer that both basically have one and the same
content, although the individual parts of this content are arranged and treated very
differently in them. In truth, all the essential ideas of Zendavesta return to
psychophysics; conversely, the basic ideas of psychophysics can already be found in
Zendavesta.
Fechner in Zendavesta had already considered the question, in connection with his
view that the material and the spiritual were connected with each other and separated
only from the point of view of the external and the inner conception, whether they
were not between the phenomena of our consciousness and those corresponding to
them physical motion processes can establish a mathematical regularity. He answered
this question in the affirmative. The universality of the principle of causality, on the
one hand, and the attachment of consciousness to certain physical processes, on the
other, demand such a legitimate relationship, and at the same time, they are highly
probable to be integrated in a single, exist for all interactions between body and soul
in the same way valid mathematical law. He goes through the conditions of
mathematical dependence, which in this casea priori . Simple proportionality seems
unacceptable to him because it does not do justice to the different nature of the
corporeal as a manifold of many movements and of the spiritual as a summary of the
manifold. He then seeks to clarify the relation by series of numbers which proceed
according to a different law. Here, finally, a relation appears as the most probable:
that of the simple arithmetic series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 .... to the geometric 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 .... In
it it shines First, a vivid picture of the intensive changes of the mental, parallel to the
simpler progress of the mathematical series, and of the extensive onesto have seen the
larger levels of the geometrical corresponding manifold of the physical. The scheme
of both series, as he later informs us, suddenly one morning, October 22, 1850,
awakened to him the idea that an equal, proportionate increase in the living power of
bodily movement might correspond to an equal absolute growth of spiritual
intensity. Thus was born the first statement of the so-called psychophysical Basic
Law in the form of the logarithmic function, which, following those series
considerations, contains the second volume of Zendavesta as "a brief exposition of a
new principle of mathematical psychology." Already here Fechner sees a major value
of this function in the fact that, since the logarithm becomes zero and then negative
for a certain size of the argument, give account of the threshold of consciousness, and
therefore make it probable that the submerged ideas can continue to exist in a more
general consciousness. He first became aware of individual empirical presuppositions
of the law, namely, the relationship of the intervals of sound to the numbers of
vibrations and the subjective sensations of light to the objective intensities of light.
How much has this way of representation changed in the elements of
psychophysics! Since psychophysics is generally defined as an exact doctrine of the
interdependency relationships between body and soul, this task is first undertaken
purely empirically. Among these dependency relationships, the simplest, that of the
sensation to the external stimuli causing it, are picked out. Then the measurement
methods required for such an investigation are developed. This is followed by the
results found here by physiologists and physicists, now preceded by the classical
investigations of Ernst Heinrich Weber on the sense of touch. By referring to Weber
as the one who first tried to establish a general law between stimulus and
sensation, From now on, the "Weber's law" named after him forms the basis of all
further discussions. This is followed by the considerations about the threshold. The
concept of stimulus threshold is contrasted with that of the "threshold of
difference". It discusses the relation of the physical stimulus movement to those
processes of movement inside the nervous system that are immediately parallel to the
sensation and for which he now introduces the term "psychophysical movements". Is
Weber's law the expression of a relation between external physical motion and the
psychophysical movement? Or does it correspond to the relationship between
psychophysical movement and sensation? Fechner sees the proof of the latter
assumption as that the facts of the stimulus threshold and the threshold of difference
demand a consistent explanation. But the threshold of difference must be related to
the transition of the psychophysical movement into sensation, since the constancy of
the relative magnitude of the threshold of difference proves its direct connection with
Weber's law. This law itself, or the logarithmic function corresponding to it, may well
be conceived of as a fundamental interdependence between the two realms of the
physical and the psychic, and never between them as different components of the
course of the physical excitations. Similarly, Fechner sees in the "parallel law"
discovered by him, according to which the difference between two stimuli is
perceived as equal, if the irritability for both increases or decreases evenly, a
confirmation of this view. Moreover, he sees in the same parallel law a kind of
transfer of Weber's law from the outside to the inside, which mediates the transition
from the "outer" to the "inner psychophysics". For they all suffer the changes of
sensations and psychophysical movements, which are not directly caused by external
stimuli. Accordingly, the change of sleep and waking, the changeable states of
attention, the walking and coming of the memory images continue to occur under the
aspect of "inner psychophysics". By holding Fechner proved by the parallel law that
Weber's law also applies to them, after him the fact of the threshold must come back
to her. The direct observation then shows that here the concept of the threshold meets
us even in multiple configurations: for example, in the alternation of sleep and
waking as the total threshold of consciousness, in the change of attention as a partial
threshold for individual ideas. In this way, as a general picture of the processes of
consciousness, there follows the wave scheme already suggested in Zendavesta. But
the wave scheme also suggests the transmission of the image of the upper and lower
waves from the individual consciousness to its further declining conditions. The
individual consciousness thus fits into a "psychophysical stage construction of the
world". Without that all-soul-soul of the universe, to which every individual
consciousness belongs as a subconscious, According to Fechner, the individual
psychic life would not be explained. Thus, psychophysics in turn flows into the
natural philosophy, and this in that religious basic view, which sees in the world an
unfolding of the divine essence, in the human as in every mental being, a ray out of
the abundance of light of the divine spirit. Gradually and unexpectedly, the reader has
been led back to the theosophy of Zendavesta from the exact and empirical
considerations of the external through internal psychophysics. Thus psychophysics
becomes for Fechner an inductive proof system for his philosophy. If the attempt to
gain access to it for its own sake had failed, he now hoped to reach an initially
perhaps more limited but higher goal: he hoped that this view of the world would
become one, if not absolutely proved, then at least to show as the one most probable
for the point of view of exact science. For this purpose he not only let his subjective
convictions withdraw first, to let the facts and the legal formulations based on them
speak for themselves, but selflessly he denied in the fundamental parts of the work
even the authorship of his very own creation, the psychophysical Basic Law, to put it
under the protective name of EH Weber, and, to some extent unjust to himself, he
called Weber the "father of psychophysics," certainly not without the intention of
giving the new area a favorable reception. which is the most likely for the point of
view of exact science. For this purpose he not only let his subjective convictions
withdraw first, to let the facts and the legal formulations based on them speak for
themselves, but selflessly he denied in the fundamental parts of the work even the
authorship of his very own creation, the psychophysical Basic Law, to put it under the
protective name of EH Weber, and, to some extent unjust to himself, he called Weber
the "father of psychophysics," certainly not without the intention of giving the new
area a favorable reception. which is the most likely for the point of view of exact
science. For this purpose he not only let his subjective convictions withdraw first, to
let the facts and the legal formulations based on them speak for themselves, but
selflessly he denied in the fundamental parts of the work even the authorship of his
very own creation, the psychophysical Basic Law, to put it under the protective name
of EH Weber, and, to some extent unjust to himself, he called Weber the "father of
psychophysics," certainly not without the intention of giving the new area a favorable
reception.

VIII.

The question posed in the beginning, whether Fechner's philosophical views of his
exact examinations, or conversely, whether these have emerged from his philosophy,
is, as I think, answered. Certainly, von Fechner was a natural scientist; and the exact
works of the first period of his life have no other tendency than that of solving the
concrete problems themselves with which they are concerned. They have gained
importance for his philosophy only indirectly, by training his mind in scientific
methodology. His peculiar world-view, however, that half-poetic, half-philosophical
doctrine of the revival and all-ensouling, of the step-construction and the
development of the beings, was initially independent of his scientific work. This
changes from the moment his world view has taken a firmer shape. Now the exact
work is subordinated to philosophical purposes. From the Zendavesta is the "atomic
doctrine", are the "ideas to the history of creation and development," and above all
the "psychophysics" emerged. Psychophysics then diverted the "collective theory of
measure" through certain questions of the psychophysical methodology, but it was
further inspired by the interest in the demonstration of the general laws of natural
phenomena, which was likewise grounded in philosophical intuitions. Here, the
reflections of this posthumous work touch on the first lecture, the Fechner on May
18, 1849 in our society " Mises hides. On the other hand, this disappears also in the
popular religious and philosophical writings from the moment when he places exact
research in the service of his philosophy; Only for the Humoresken and the riddle
booklet he still retained it in the later editions.
How successful was this last attempt by Fechner to secure a secure position for his
philosophy with the weapons of science?
 When years passed after the appearance of the "Elements of Psychophysics," he
could not deny the fact that if the ultimate goal of this work had been the conversion
of the scientific world to his philosophical and religious convictions, he would not
reach that goal again would have. Probably psychophysics caused a great stir. Their
problems and methods gave rise to lively discussions in the circles of the next parties,
the physiologists and psychologists. The procedures for testing the relationship
between stimulus and sensation have been more carefully developed. Weber's law
was extended partly to other sensory areas, partly limited within the limits of its
validity. Fechner's mathematical formulations soon received approvals soon, and,
above all, the interpretation of Weber's law was heavily disputed: the psychophysical
conception was replaced by a physiological one, which shifted the ground of the law
into the relation of the external physical stimulus to the central psychophysical
movements, and a psychological one, which in it constitutes a general expression the
relativity of psychic states and processes saw opposite. But Fechner's philosophical
foundations, those views on the relation of the individual consciousness to a total
consciousness lying below its threshold, and the resulting classification of both into a
psychophysical stage structure of the world, -this entire keystone of his doctrine, to
which the preceding had only preparation and justification were passed over, was
ignored with silence. It seemed doubtful
This situation may seem strange at first sight; on closer inspection, it is
understandable enough. As convincing as Fechner himself was by virtue of the fact
that the threshold of the classification of consciousness in that stage structure of the
world received a good part of its convincing power, this psychophysical justification
for him was precisely that the world-view to which it resulted was independent of all
psychophysics had taken firm root in him. Whoever objectified more objectively to
that justification and regarded the assumptions which included them independently of
their metaphysical connection, could not but deny justified doubts. That a
psychophysical movement as such perpetuates infinitely, only to cross the threshold
of consciousness after a long interval, but Fechner's picture of the continuity of waves
that criss-crossed, especially with regard to the general phenomena of the
transformation of energy, did not offer a sufficient support. But the subordination of
the most varied processes of consciousness, such as the change of sleep and waking,
the walking and coming of the memory images, the fluctuations of attention, under
the same idea of ascending and descending a never-ending psychophysical wave
motion, the deeper the psychological analysis The attempt was made to penetrate the
nature of events in order to appear more as an external analogy, more suited to
conceal the true character of the processes than to enlighten them. Whether one was
aware of all these misgivings that the psychology included in psychophysics could
arouse However, when the discussion following the publication of the work was
clearly accounted for, it must be doubted that nowhere did they reach a decisive
expression. But precisely when such concerns against the wave scheme were more
instinctively directed than with clear critical consciousness, they more readily led to
the conclusion that the whole "inner psychophysics," with all the implications
attached to it, remained outside the discussion. The creator of the new science was
thus enabled to defend his work continually in the outer fortifications that surrounded
it, while the center of his position, for whose sake he had in fact built his outworks,
was not for the adversaries seemed to exist. This circumstance has given Fechner's
work, later written in defense of his psychophysical point of view, its character. The
energy and perseverance with which he defended his conception of Weber's law as a
fundamental principle connecting the mental and physical world becomes
comprehensible, bearing in mind that with this psychophysical conception the whole
value, for him psychophysics as the exact foundation possessed, stood or fell in his
philosophical worldview. Indeed, in view of this close connection of his conception
with his deepest philosophical convictions, one can not but admire the self-conquest,
with which he deliberately and without prejudice discussed deviant opinions and tried
to do them justice from their own assumptions. with which he defended his
conception of Weber's law as a fundamental principle uniting the mental and physical
world becomes comprehensible, bearing in mind that with that psychophysical
conception, the whole value possessed by psychophysics as the exact foundation of
his philosophical world-view, had to stand or fall. Indeed, in view of this close
connection of his conception with his deepest philosophical convictions, one can not
but admire the self-conquest, with which he deliberately and without prejudice
discussed deviant opinions and tried to do them justice from their own
assumptions. with which he defended his conception of Weber's law as a fundamental
principle uniting the mental and physical world becomes comprehensible, bearing in
mind that with that psychophysical conception, the whole value possessed by
psychophysics as the exact foundation of his philosophical world-view, had to stand
or fall. Indeed, in view of this close connection of his conception with his deepest
philosophical convictions, one can not but admire the self-conquest, with which he
deliberately and without prejudice discussed deviant opinions and tried to do them
justice from their own assumptions. that with this psychophysical conception the
whole value, which for him psychophysics possessed as the exact foundation of his
philosophical world-view, had to stand or fall. Indeed, in view of this close
connection of his conception with his deepest philosophical convictions, one can not
but admire the self-conquest, with which he deliberately and without prejudice
discussed deviant opinions and tried to do them justice from their own
assumptions. that with this psychophysical conception the whole value, which for
him psychophysics possessed as the exact foundation of his philosophical world-
view, had to stand or fall. Indeed, in view of this close connection of his conception
with his deepest philosophical convictions, one can not but admire the self-conquest,
with which he deliberately and without prejudice discussed deviant opinions and tried
to do them justice from their own assumptions.
Thus it did not appear that the mood of his final years in the least bitter, indeed
scarcely clouded, when he finally could not deny the knowledge that he was almost
alone in his conception of the psychophysical law, and therefore that, if he had meant
to enter his philosophy with the help of psychophysics in science, this hope had
failed. He bore this with the serene serenity of the sage, who does not doubt that the
truth will ultimately prevail over error, whether his own conviction may have been
true or false. A tone of resignation but goes through many utterances of his last
years. How the future of psychophysics is shaped, he says at the end of one for the
"Allgemeine Zeitung" in 1882 It will mainly depend on two questions: first, which of
the different views on the importance of the psychophysical law will prevail, and,
secondly, whether "internal psychophysics" will prove tenable. Depending on the
choice of these questions, psychophysics will either "either play only a modest
supporting role alongside psychology and physics as the link between the two, or will
provide support and support to great and new prospects in the whole area of
existence." will prove durable. Depending on the choice of these questions,
psychophysics will either "either play only a modest supporting role alongside
psychology and physics as the link between the two, or will provide support and
support to great and new prospects in the whole area of existence." will prove
durable. Depending on the choice of these questions, psychophysics will either
"either play only a modest supporting role alongside psychology and physics as the
link between the two, or will provide support and support to great and new prospects
in the whole area of existence."
Certainly in this judgment the author of psychophysics was unjust to himself. It has
happened to him here as well as sometimes creative spirits who, if their ideals do not
want to realize themselves, now pay little heed to the precious treasures which they
have gained on the way to their futile goals. When Kepler, in his "Harmonice mundi,"
drew up the third of his three great laws, which determined the ratios of the orbital
periods of the planets to their mean distances from the sun, there were fantastic ideas
about the mystical meaning of the regular polygons and the harmonic intervals of
tone Cosmos that had guided his speculations, and in that law he saw only one of the
building blocks, which made up the wonderful construction of his mystical world
harmony. Kepler's world harmony has long since disappeared. But the third of his
laws has become the basis of the theory in which the idea of that world harmony
resurfaced in a scientifically purified form, the general theory of gravitation. So
perhaps the metaphysical speculations that Fechner built up on his "inner
psychophysics" may prove to be illusions and forgotten over time. What will remain
unforgotten is that he was the first to introduce exact methods, exact principles of
measurement and experimental observation into the study of spiritual life, and that in
doing so he made possible a scientific doctrine of the soul in the strict sense of the
word. Herbart already had this in mind, but he had completely missed the path that
could lead to him. The physiologists, who since Johannes Muller had worked
manifoldly on the frontiers of the physical and psychical, had worked out in detail,
but without a clear awareness of the general task, and without thinking of the training
of rigorous methods. Only Fechner, with his "psychophysical methods of
measurement", which were initially intended for a specific problem and could easily
be extended to other areas, opened the way for the exact exploration of spiritual
life. For Fechner himself, this task has grown entirely out of metaphysical ideas, and
since he regarded them only as the means of asserting these ideas, he underestimated
their significance and consequences. He mean, if that metaphysical purpose were to
be abolished, the psychophysical method would only remain as a modest addition to
psychology. Today we shall not be allowed to see its value at all in the very fact that
it is not touched by changeable philosophical views, and has thereby helped
considerably to ensure psychology itself the character of a positive science
independent of the conflict of metaphysical systems.
But how is it then that one will ask for all this after all, with Fechner's
philosophical world-view? Does not it have any value in itself, except for the result
hardly sought by its author? Or does it, however dubious it may appear with its
psychophysical and psychological justification, also have a lasting significance for
it? In answering this question one may well remember the Fechner word that a
philosophy is not a mathematical proposition that must be either true or false. After
all, philosophy is not a clear concept. In the history of philosophical world views, two
types of thought systems are clearly different. Some are looking for the science of
their time, often in a one-sided direction, but essentially under the co-operative
influence of all main factors, to summarize the whole of a world-view. Aristotelian
philosophy, which, as the most complete expression of the science of antiquity,
dominated scientific thinking for centuries, dominated this character. In the
seventeenth century Descartes sought and achieved something similar, and at the end
of the eighteenth we may well attribute to Kant's doctrine the position of a "scientific
philosophy" in this narrower sense. But there is another kind of philosophy. It does
not want to be a strictly scientific system, but, dissatisfied with the results of
conceptual thinking, it wants to shape a world view with the help of fantasy. which
satisfies the needs of the mind and helps the instinct of knowledge to transcend the
barriers set by cautiously advancing scientific research. It is this philosophy that, in
order to solve the riddles of existence as it wishes, is wedded to poetry. It is a poetry
in terms which, when necessary, where the aids of the conceptual language fail, sees
its thoughts realized in living intuitions and thus leads philosophy back to its original
source, to the myth. Could there be a more telling testimony to the right of existence
of this poetic form of philosophy than the fact that the thinker with whom the
scientific philosophy of Western humanity began, and who, even today, is even more
profounder among us than any of those who have come after him in science, religion,
and life, that Plato, wherever the help of strict conceptual thought denied him,
resorted to myth, to philosophical poetry? And if we ask ourselves which of the two
sides was the most effective in this greatest of the philosophers, we may well doubt
whether the philosophical poet deserves the palm even before the dialectician.
Which of these two types of philosophical world views belongs to Fechner's system
of thought can not be doubted. It belongs in the series of philosophical poetry, and in
fact he did not want to know it otherwise. Philosophy was considered to be a matter
of faith, not knowledge. But just as philosophical poetry possesses its right in the
development of philosophical systems, so Fechner's philosophy may assert the right
of itself, that in the series of related systems of thought it holds a historically well
founded and, as I think, a more significant position those that are usually granted to
her in the present. In its general character, this philosophy - and this can not be
doubted - is first of all due to Schelling's philosophy of nature. s and his school. But
the ideas of this natural philosophy return to it in a mature, well-tempered way that
meets the requirements of science. Therefore, if in future times the historian of
philosophy will survey the evolution of thought of the nineteenth century in the
perspective that brings the events closer together, which may afford the greater
distance, he may well say: In the beginning of this century, where the intellectual
contemplation of the world was replaced by a more vivid view of nature, as found
especially in Goethe its poetic expression, and where at the same time in natural
science new discoveries in all areas, on the galvanism, the chemical processes, the
life phenomena, the general interest captivated, Under the co-operative influence of
these motives there arose a fantastic natural philosophy, impelled by the delusions of
bottomless speculation, which necessarily had to conflict with science, because its
representatives lacked the strict method of scientific thought, and because time
became a philosophical exploitation of philosophy new results was not yet ripe. This
was the natural philosophy of Schelling and his school. But then, half a century later,
a man came who brought the enterprise of this romantic natural philosophy to an end
with better means. Thoroughly trained in the meanwhile mature natural science of his
time, he has sketched a world view which, to be sure, remained a philosophical poem,
in which, however, the confused ideas of that natural philosophy are explained in
a more scientific form, while at the same time its author, in carrying out his task of
life, brought to the positive sciences a wealth of new views and suggestions. This
man was Gustav Theodor Fechner, the innovator and perfector of the romantic natural
philosophy of the nineteenth century.

Side dishes.

l. Personal memories.
In Fechner's personality, one of those quiet, undemanding scholarly natures, which
in the first half of the nineteenth century often still determined the physiognomies of
our universities, rose into the more sophisticated present. Even the small apartment
on Blumengasse in Leipzig bore the stamp of an externally very modest, but inwardly
contented existence. In the unadorned little study stood a simple square table, which,
if it had ever been painted, had long since lost its color. On the walls of the room and
the even smaller alcove-like adjoining room stood a few bookcases, raw in the wood,
on which were piled very few books, but large bumps of manuscripts. His own
reading Fechner was almost completely failed by his long-term eye disease, and if
participating friends and especially girlfriends helped him a few hours a day by
reading aloud, it was only a miserable substitute for him. Thus, in his later years,
when he had distinguished himself by an astonishing erudition in various fields, he
was dependent on drawing mostly from himself and from what the treasure of his
memories offered him. The book he used most was the logarithmic table that was
almost always on his desk; and the reading which favored him was that of his own
manuscripts, which he worked over and over again until they had acquired the form
satisfactory to him. At first he used to write down his thoughts on loose quarto leaves,
illegible for others. Then this draft was worked out in coherent form; and finally the
last fair copies in Folio, which were often followed by two, finally closed. In order to
make his reading easier, he wrote in large handwriting, the deciphering of which was
easy for him, and often very difficult for the composer. He could never get used to
dictation.
Like a painstakingly diligent writer, Fechner was also a very conscientious
computer. The number of individual calculations he has carried out for psychophysics
and for the collective theory of measure is incalculable, and he hardly failed to
convince himself of the correctness of a result by repeated calculations. Even in
recent years, when the field of psychophysics of younger researchers appeared, he
used to check almost every single one of their calculations.
So, between thinking and writing, almost all of his time was shared. Then it might
happen that, when he had just begun the daily walk with his faithful companion,
whom he had treated himself as the only respite in the day, he once more returned
from the street to his study, to quickly find out what was in his mind had come to
paper. Nevertheless, when one visited him, one never had the impression of
disturbing him in one work. He apparently loved talking to others about pending
questions, which then became a matter of controversy after his way of talking. Often
the subject matter of the conversation occupied him for a long time afterwards. For it
could happen that he caught up with an argument that had come to him too late the
next day by letter, and that in this way an occasional discussion continued in a longer
correspondence. But he loved to limit the interview to positive themes. His
philosophical and religious beliefs, for which he so tirelessly propaganda in his
writings, he touched rarely. He was by no means communicative about the works that
occupied him. As a rule, they did not learn about them until they were
completed. The most striking example of this is the "collective gauge". When, at his
death, I arranged his papers at the request of the widow, I was greatly surprised to
find much of this work in the various stages described above, which used to wander
through his manuscripts. No one had known about the existence of this work, neither
Mrs. Fechner nor any of his friends and colleagues, though he had carried the plan
with him for about twenty years, and spent almost a decade working on the plan
itself. In the excellent edition and supplement of this work, the GF Lipps on behalf of
the Royal. Society of the Knowledgeable, one can clearly discern the stage in which
Fechner's work was when death surprised him, since the publisher was careful to
make the appended additions distinct from the author's own statements. Only those
who have seen the manuscript itself can certainly have a sufficient idea of the great
difficulties of the work by which the publisher has succeeded in saving Fechner's last
work for science.

2. Fechner's relationship to the philosophy of his time.

Fechner himself remarked that with Schelling's identity philosophy he was able to
"find no clear points of contact". But a work rooted in Schelling's view, Oken's
philosophy of nature, "pushed him first by his titanic boldness beyond the ordinary
view of nature and for a while in his direction" (Zendavesta II, p. 351). In fact, there
are many places in Oken to which Fechner's ideas echo. I emphasize the following:
Oken, Textbook of Natural Philosophy 1809-11, I, p.24: "Without life there is no
being, nothing is only because it is." "There is no new life force in the universe, life is
not new, come into the world after it was created, but an original, an idea, a thought
of God, the entelechy itself with all its consequences. "p. 25:" Every living thing is a
double: an existing one and an absolute immersed. "p. 81:" The space is spherical,
and indeed an infinite sphere. " The sphere is therefore the most perfect form, the
archetype. "" If God wants to become real, then he must appear under the form of the
sphere, there is no other form for God. The God-in-law is an infinite sphere. "" The
universe is a sphere, and everything that is total in the universe is a sphere. "P. 86:"
The more perfect the motion of a thing is circular, the more perfect it is itself. "II, p.
15: The primordial mucus, from which all organic things have been created, is the
sea-slime." (See Fechner, Ideas on the History of Creation and Development, p. 86.)
p. 16: "Wherever the rising ocean organism succeeds in gaining shape, a higher
organism emerges from it." P. 17: All organic individuals must die. "But this
destruction is not for nature, and at the same time other organisms are being created
elsewhere." "Even the world organism is eternal, without change." P. 18: "Dying is a
recall in God, from which everything went out." "Dying is not destruction, just a
change." "The disappearance and appearance of individuals is only a metamorphosis
of one into the other, a transmigration of souls whose way is through God." P. 25:
"The original organism is the image of the planet. It must therefore have the spherical
form. "P. 26:" The original organism is a bubble due to the Sollizitation of the air. ""
The first organic points are bubbles. The organic world has at its base an infinity of
vesicles. "(Infusoria) P. 27:" If the organic world consists of infusoria, then the whole
organic world must develop from infusoria; Plants and animals can only be
metamorphoses of infusoria. "(One proof of this Oken sees in the fact that the death
of the organisms again infusoria arise.) P. 81:" Thus, no organism is created, which is
greater than an infusorischer point. No organism is created and has never been
created to anyone who is not microscopic. "" Everything greater is not created but
developed. "
In addition to those passages of the work in which Fechner touches him more or
less closely, there are, of course, many others, and it is generally precisely those who
play a particularly prominent role in the natural philosophy of Schelling and his
school, whom Fechner never does would have agreed. This includes, above all, the
recurrent transmissions of the polar antitheses of galvanism and magnetism to the
most diverse natural and, where possible, mental processes, and the play with
analogies in general, which considerably exceeds the rather broad limits which
Fechner himself permitted , (See, for example, Oken, loc. Cit., Iii., Pp. 126, 130.)
After all, it must be recognized that in Oken, in fact, the true familiarity with the facts
of positive natural science gives speculative fantasies a direction by which he
occasionally foresees newer notions in an even raw form. This is especially true of
his developmental theorems, the main ones of which are listed above. If in recent
times Schelling was sometimes praised as being a forerunner of the theory of
evolution, this assertion is completely erroneous. Schelling never understood the
concept of evolution differently than in that ideal sense in which Goethe's
Metamorphosis of Plants, which was chiefly of influence here, regarded flowering as
a higher stage of the leaf. A clear testimony to this is that Schelling, after having been
included in the and in which "the soul of the world" had constructed evolution as an
ascending one, in which "the first draft of a system of natural philosophy" reversed
the matter, that is, treated the step sequence in a downward direction, and then in the
"introduction" to this design again to ascending order to return. Oken, as far as I can
find, is the only one among these natural philosophers who has clearly understood
organic evolution as real, and has transferred this idea to man. He was thus in this
sense a real forerunner of the theory of descent, while in his infusoria-like "bubbles"
and his "primordial mucus" certain views of the cell and protoplasmic theory are
anticipated. and in which "the soul of the world" had constructed evolution as an
ascending one, in which "the first draft of a system of natural philosophy" reversed
the matter, that is, treated the step sequence in a downward direction, and then in the
"introduction" to this design again to ascending order to return. Oken, as far as I can
find, is the only one among these natural philosophers who has clearly understood
organic evolution as real, and has transferred this idea to man. He was thus in this
sense a real forerunner of the theory of descent, while in his infusoria-like "bubbles"
and his "primordial mucus" certain views of the cell and protoplasmic theory are
anticipated. had constructed the development as an ascending one, in which "the first
draft of a system of natural philosophy" reversed the matter, that is, treated the step
sequence in a downward direction, only to return to ascending order in the
"introduction" to this design. Oken, as far as I can find, is the only one among these
natural philosophers who has clearly understood organic evolution as real, and has
transferred this idea to man. He was thus in this sense a real forerunner of the theory
of descent, while in his infusoria-like "bubbles" and his "primordial mucus" certain
views of the cell and protoplasmic theory are anticipated. had constructed the
development as an ascending one, in which "the first draft of a system of natural
philosophy" reversed the matter, that is, treated the step sequence in a downward
direction, only to return to ascending order in the "introduction" to this design. Oken,
as far as I can find, is the only one among these natural philosophers who has clearly
understood organic evolution as real, and has transferred this idea to man. He was
thus in this sense a real forerunner of the theory of descent, while in his infusoria-like
"bubbles" and his "primordial mucus" certain views of the cell and protoplasmic
theory are anticipated. reversed the matter, that is, treated the step sequence in a
downward direction, only to return to the ascending order in the "Introduction" to this
draft. Oken, as far as I can find, is the only one among these natural philosophers who
has clearly understood organic evolution as real, and has transferred this idea to
man. He was thus in this sense a real forerunner of the theory of descent, while in his
infusoria-like "bubbles" and his "primordial mucus" certain views of the cell and
protoplasmic theory are anticipated. reversed the matter, that is, treated the step
sequence in a downward direction, only to return to the ascending order in the
"Introduction" to this draft. Oken, as far as I can find, is the only one among these
natural philosophers who has clearly understood organic evolution as real, and has
transferred this idea to man. He was thus in this sense a real forerunner of the theory
of descent, while in his infusoria-like "bubbles" and his "primordial mucus" certain
views of the cell and protoplasmic theory are anticipated. the only one among these
natural philosophers who clearly saw organic development as real and transferred this
idea to man. He was thus in this sense a real forerunner of the theory of descent,
while in his infusoria-like "bubbles" and his "primordial mucus" certain views of the
cell and protoplasmic theory are anticipated. the only one among these natural
philosophers who clearly saw organic development as real and transferred this idea to
man. He was thus in this sense a real forerunner of the theory of descent, while in his
infusoria-like "bubbles" and his "primordial mucus" certain views of the cell and
protoplasmic theory are anticipated.
As unmistakable as Book is the spiritual affinity which connects Fechner's world-
view with the philosophy of Romanticism, he has been touched only
unsympathetically by Hegel's adult system. This is understandable in his
preoccupation with the natural philosophy and in the discomfort which Hegel's
dialectics aroused. He could not form a true idea of Hegel's "world spirit." He always
saw in him only a sum of individual human spirits and thought that a real unity of
humanity could only come about through a universal psychic principle bound to a
real substratum. Fechner is and remains a natural philosopher. In a certain sense, the
spiritual world has interest and meaning only as a developmental product of nature,
while, conversely, nature is conceivable only as a spiritual activity. Here, without
being directly influenced, Fechner's ideas about nature and mind, about this world
and beyond, are the closest to those of the philosophically and poetically deepest of
the Romantics, Novalis. (Cf. Novalis' writings, edited by Ernst Heilborn, Part 2, I.
half, pp. 3, 4, 244 ff.)
At the same time Fechner's attitude to other philosophers, especially to Kant, is
explained by all this. Kant's name is scarcely mentioned in Zendavesta; in the
"daytime view" he talks to him several times, but only to reject the notion of the
"thing in itself" that seemed like an attempt to destroy the joy of the world. Most
frequently he deals with Herbart and Lotze in his writings. It was probably Herbart's
mathematical psychology that first gave him the idea of seeking an exact functional
relation between the physical and the psychic (Zendavesta II, p. 373). He also
adopted from Herbart the concept of the "threshold," which then, of course, gained in
him a far-reaching metaphysical significance which he did not yet possess in him.
As Fechner has essentially derived his philosophy from himself, one can also say of
him that he had a relatively low understanding of newer philosophical systems. For
epistemological investigations and for historical considerations, he lacked the
meaning. Nature and religion - these were the two poles around which his
philosophical thinking moved. Wherever he went to other fields, such as that of ethics
in the work On the Supreme Good, or even psychology, as in the final chapters of
psychophysics, his reflections unravel again and again in his philosophy of nature and
religion ,
 This combination of natural and religious-philosophical motives gives Fechner's
philosophy its pantheistic character. Even if one called him a "pantheist", he did not
contradict it. But at the same time he was of the opinion that not much was said with
this expression. In fact, the peculiarity of his thoughts rests more on what they
deviate from the otherwise familiar forms of pantheism than on what they agree with
them. For this peculiarity can be found primarily in three characteristics. One is the
adaptation of his philosophy to the positive results of natural science. As far as
Fechner goes beyond the latter, nowhere does he come into direct contradiction with
them. This is a train who divides his philosophy from the views of Schelling's natural
philosophy, which are otherwise closest to her, as well as from older mystical
theosophy. His philosophy is theosophy, and indeed mystical theosophy in its
teachings on the otherworld; but it is the theosophy of a naturalist of the
present. Secondly, it differs from the classical forms of evolution of pantheism in
modern philosophy, especially in the systems of Spinoza and Hegel, and in
Schopenhauer's view of the world in terms of its general character, in that the
doctrine of the "psychophysical stage structure" of the universe implies one not only
makes the personal concept of God possible but also demands it. For, according to
her, the divine consciousness includes in itself all other units of consciousness, but it
is not identical with the sum of them; but according to a comparison often used by
Fechner, it behaves like an enclosing circle to the inscribed circles in it. This union of
theism and pantheism brings Fechner's views into contact with earlier and
simultaneous forms of mystical theosophy. As his psychophysical step construction
of the world hints at age-old ideas of emanation, Schelling's later, positive
philosophy, Franz Baader's doctrine of creation and salvation, contains similar
concepts to Chr. Fr. Krause's philosophy of life. But Fechner's philosophy is
independent of these pre-existing and simultaneous theosophical speculations,
Finally, a third feature of Fechner's philosophy is that it rejects all transcendent
concepts. There is no world of things behind the phenomenal world. Therein lies an
essential motive of the "day view," which consists precisely in the conviction that
nature, which we see, hear, feel, is the real nature. But also God and the intermediate
beings between him and the people, animals and plants are quite as they are given us
in the intuition, really. The universe, though we perceive it only partially, but in this
part in all its majestic grandeur, is the real world; the consciousness of God that we
experience in ourselves is God Himself, not a mere effect of God, not the appearance
of some of His attributes. In this view, That being and appearance are one, Fechner,
without knowing it, most probably meets Hegel's otherwise altogether different kind
of doctrine. However, as with Hegel in the "Absolute Idea," the transcendent
reappears in the dualism of body and soul. As much as he emphasizes that natural
science attains its "night view" only by equating its abstractions with the reality of
things, he himself has remained confused in this confusion. The material and spiritual
worlds always remain to him, in the sense of Spinoza's doctrine of attributes, two
objectively different sides of being, to which we take a different standpoint of
consideration, But this point of view, again, changes the content of perception only
because it is different even after each of the two sides. Only under the presupposition
of such a real diversity of the physical and psychical did his conception of Weber's
law as a principle of the interaction between the two sides of being have any
meaning. If he had ever come close to the view that science and psychology have not
at all different objects to their content, but are only different forms of the treatment of
one and the same unified experience, he would have been able to maintain his "day
view" in opposition to scientific dogmatism; but of course he would have had to do
without all the transcendental speculations

3. Fechner's philosophical method.

In the introduction to "Zendavesta" (vol. I, p. XXI ff.) Fechner emphasized that in

his philosophy he did not use methods other than those generally accepted in science
and especially in natural science, namely, "generalization" Induction and analogy
". He does not stop halfway or with incomplete results only with his inductions and
analogies, but seeks to finish them consistently; and, on the whole, the utilization of
analogy prevails in him, whereas in natural science this recedes against
induction. One can call this self-characteristic of his method correct; but you can not
help but find them incomplete. In terms of induction, she is in so far as it disregards
one of the most characteristic features of Fechner's induction, namely, that it usually
starts from a certain group of facts, without looking back for any accompanying
auxiliary induction. With regard to analogy, it is because it, in turn, passes over the
specific peculiarity of Fechner's method of collecting analogies and piling up entirely
different fields of experience. Through these properties induction and analogy are not
only in opposition to each other, but they also stand in opposition to the modes of
application of these methods in the positive sciences. In general, the rule here is to
give induction as complete a basis as possible, and to apply the analogy to the next
instances, limited to those cases that are as close as possible to the problematic
object. This formal antithesis of induction and analogy is well founded in the logical
nature of both methods. Induction seeks to find the general principle to which the
individual facts which have served as its basis can be subsumed: for this there is an
unconditional requirement that no essential fact be overlooked, that is, induction be
as complete as possible. The analogy, on the other hand, deduces from one object to
another, by deducing from the agreement of the same in definite given properties
upon the agreement in other, not given. From the outset, therefore, it must assume
that its comparisons are limited to individual objects that are as close as possible to
one another. Conversely, Fechner, while limiting his inductions as much as possible
and carrying out his analogies as comprehensively as possible, induces induction in
him to end up in a mere analogy, while his analogies, by their accumulation, take on
the character of inductions, but without theirs On the contrary, analogies that emanate
from different points of attack often conflict with one another, and must even conflict
because the analogy, by its logical nature, can not endure such a cross-over of
differently directed comparisons. Some examples may explain this. while its
analogies, by their accumulation, assume the character of inductions, but this would
not be conducive to their safety, since on the contrary analogies emanating from
different points of attack must often conflict with one another, indeed resist, because
analogy, according to its logical character, must be such Crossing of variously
directed comparisons does not endure. Some examples may explain this. while its
analogies, by their accumulation, assume the character of inductions, but this would
not be conducive to their safety, since on the contrary analogies emanating from
different points of attack must often conflict with one another, indeed resist, because
analogy, according to its logical character, must be such Crossing of variously
directed comparisons does not endure. Some examples may explain this.
One of Fechner's most important inductions is the one that underlies his concept of
life. It is certainly not denied its justification for the negative authority that he has
energetically asserted that all attempts to produce organic life from inorganic
organisms have failed. If, however, in order to obtain a positive conception of life, he
confines himself essentially to a consideration of the processes of life from the purely
mechanical point of view of a somewhat more complex regular periodicity, the basis
of this induction is certainly too narrow. The notion of life must not only be derived
from this abstract, mathematical-physical side; above all it must be determined by the
chemical and physiological properties which characterize life; but these can not be
subordinated to that abstract mechanical point of view. Nevertheless, the whole
doctrine of the origin of the Molokularorganischen rests on the cosmo-organic on this
merely formal property, which is secondary to the physiological concept of
life. Because of this limited basis, however, the whole method of proof falls from the
role of induction into that of analogy. The concept of life has in fact not arisen by
induction, but merely by the analogy of the regular periodicity of cosmic processes
with that of the metabolic and reproductive processes of organic life. Nevertheless,
the whole doctrine of the origin of the Molokularorganischen rests on the cosmo-
organic on this merely formal property, which is secondary to the physiological
concept of life. Because of this limited basis, however, the whole method of proof
falls from the role of induction into that of analogy. The concept of life has in fact not
arisen by induction, but merely by the analogy of the regular periodicity of cosmic
processes with that of the metabolic and reproductive processes of organic
life. Nevertheless, the whole doctrine of the origin of the Molokularorganischen rests
on the cosmo-organic on this merely formal property, which is secondary to the
physiological concept of life. Because of this limited basis, however, the whole
method of proof falls from the role of induction into that of analogy. The concept of
life has in fact not arisen by induction, but merely by the analogy of the regular
periodicity of cosmic processes with that of the metabolic and reproductive processes
of organic life.
Just as induction becomes a mere analogy by its restriction to a limited number of
features, so in Fechner the abundance of analogies which he seeks to substantiate his
main clauses is a peculiar emulation of the induction process. Thus "Zendavesta" is
equally inexhaustible in emphasizing analogies between the properties of the earth
and those of the living beings upon it, as in the rejection of objections that might be
drawn from the disagreement of certain characteristics. But the more Fechner
endeavors to utilize all possible positive instances which can only be found, and
occasionally also those which, if they do not correspond to the purpose of his
argumentation, would certainly be discarded, all the more does his deduction lose its
scientific impartiality, and the more easily does it happen that the analogies that run
side by side are actually incompatible. So one can possibly agree with it when he says
that one should not expect for the Earth as an organic whole the same organization as
for the living creatures on it, since the sensory organs, nerves, and brains of all its
creatures belong to it. But if he does not miss the opportunity to relate the surface of
the sea as the eye of the earth to the transparent and spherical parts of the organ of
vision, etc. (Zendavesta II, pp. 225ff.), Then one must say that such an eye in the
large would also demand corresponding optical nerves and a corresponding brain in
the large one. Here the analogies are mutually detrimental, in that the new one brings
back the objections that had just struck the previous one out of the field. In the later
writings Fechner has become more cautious in the use of analogies. But he did not
avoid this harmful accumulation here too.

4. The preschool of aesthetics and the later scientific writings.

Among the later works of Fechner there are two on the same ground, in particular,
the tactics of scientific reasoning in psychophysics which they observe: the "theory of
atoms" and the "ideas of the history of creation and development." The "preschool of
aesthetics", by its tendency against the prevailing philosophical method, joins the
"preschool of aesthetics," which, however, at the same time occupies a notable
exceptional position inasmuch as it expresses its renunciation of the relation to a
general world-view. But it is precisely this renunciation that is clearly rooted in the
endeavor to make the contrast of Fechner's world-view stand out against the
standpoint of the prevailing philosophy all the more keenly. The "aesthetics from
above", He wants to fathom the essence of the beautiful out of general philosophical
principles, not out of the direct intuition and comparison of the aesthetic objects, and
contrasts Fechner with his "aesthetics from below". He wants to show that here, as in
other fields, experience is the source of our knowledge; and for this purpose, in
addition to observation of the psychological effects of works of art, he uses the
experimental determination of the conditions of satisfaction and displeasure in simple
form relationships in order to lay the foundations of an "experimental
aesthetic". From the results of observation and experiment he derives only the
principles whose strictly empirical validity, emphasized only on the relation of the
impression to its psychological effect, is emphasized. So here is the renunciation of
the relationship to a more general philosophical worldview in the theme of the work
justified. The protest against the conventional aesthetics could only become so
haunting if the company's own Weltanschauung were completely withdrawn. The
relation to the general direction of his thinking can not be misunderstood here
either. This wants everywhere, even in the ideas about God and immortality, to put
the immediate living intuition into their rights; and therein it is hostile to the abstract
speculation that operates with unintelligible concepts. For this philosophy of living
intuition, there could be no more favorable field to show its strength than that of
aesthetics, which has everywhere only to do with structures of immediate intuition.
In another field he had previously taken up the struggle against abstract speculative
philosophy in his Philosophical and Physical Theory of the Atom. However, the aim
of this work is already visibly to demonstrate the compatibility of the views
prevailing in physics with the preconditions demanded by his own
philosophy. Having demonstrated the groundlessness of philosophical objections to
atomism, he first seeks to reduce the atomistic idea to its simplest form, to that of the
simple punctiform atoms, by rightly observing that mathematical analysis, where it
makes use of atomistic theory, only the power points needed. But not in these
expositions, in which he, following the view of the time, Everywhere he deals with
the atomistic constitution of matter as constituting, but in the other possible
conceptions which he develops about the laws of the effects of forces, the originality
of his remarks, as opposed to the teachings of the time. From a philosophical point of
view, what is significant here is the proposition that, in reality, we are never given
matter itself, but only the laws of its effects, from which we first draw conclusions to
them. Now, in accordance with the unified nature of the causal principle, our need for
explanation of nature would be most satisfactorily satisfied if it were possible to find
a single law which contained all special laws as its special cases. That the law of
gravitation, as we have sometimes supposed, can not be this law, teach the effects of
molecular forces. Fechner therefore seeks to combine these with that in a uniform law
of force, assuming that the effects of two particles on each other are at the same time
dependent on the presence of further particles, so that as the number of these
increases, the form of the law progressively complicates itself. If the execution of
such a hypothesis offers such great mathematical difficulties that a deduction of the
phenomena in this way is provisionally impossible, it is in principle of great interest,
since it shows that it is conceivable, on one of the conventional ones significantly
different ways of achieving the goal of a uniform declaration of nature. It would
allow this hypothesis of multiple forces not merely to subordinate gravitation and
molecular forces to the same general law; but also the law of inertia, which as a rule
is regarded as a property of matter added to the external forces, could be regarded as
the simplest special case of that general law of force. Like the gravitational effect
between two centers of forcea and b as the product of the two
directions from and ba, therefore, as the square of their distance, inertia could be
regarded as the product of zero distance corresponding to the single center of
force. Like the principle of inertia downwards, the molecular forces, which soon
become attractively repulsive, depending on the number of interrelated particles,
would be classified in the same way. In this case, not only the chemical forces but
also, what is the most valuable result for Fechner, these molecular forces are to be
added to the organic forces which are expressed in the phenomena of life. As in the
case of cosmic movements, a regular periodicity of movements results from the
continual coexistence of different forces, in fact, the periodic phenomena of life of
organisms will be deduced from such molecular forces of higher order. Thus the
general law of force itself becomes the source of that principle of stability which
Fechner, as the most general cosmic final principle, contrasts with the causal
principle. Thus, in attempting to eliminate the specific concept of inertia, he is
already drawing on ideas which have arisen in the latest speculations of theoretical
physics on the causes of gravitation, his consideration of the molecular forces points
to a path which is expedient of the organic structure as a consequence of the
mechanical laws. In this introduction of the teleological principle Fechner also
touches upon ideas, which have become active again in the latest development of
science. But while the neo-vitalism of today's physiology as a rule leads back to the
wanderings of old vitalism with its specific vital forces, Fechner points to a path that
avoids this long-untenable point of view.
Incidentally, these conclusions from the general law of forces of nature are, for the
most part, only elaborated in the second of the above-mentioned natural-
philosophical writings, in the "Ideas on the History of the Creation and Development
of Organisms." Though later considered to be the "elements of psychophysics," this
work has its place in its material content here, between atomic theory and
psychophysics. Among those who, before the appearance of Darwin, had already
expressed the general idea of the development of the organic world, Fechner too
could have asserted his claims. Already in "Zendavesta" he had developed this idea in
connection with his ideas about the revival of nature. Yes he had here as one of the
ways in which one could try to grasp the organic development, the accumulation of
accidental distinctions produced by external influences, and even pointed to those
analogies with the cultivation of plants and animals, in which Darwin later saw such
an important support of his theory (Zendavesta II , P. 179). But Fechner had declared
this way from the outset impassable. Also, especially the Deszendenlehre was outside
his former minds. In the preface to the Ideas he confesses that he was converted to
her only after a long struggle. But now also the form of representation in this later
writing is changed. If in the earlier work he had presented his peculiar theory of
evolution in direct connection with his doctrine of the revival of nature and of the
earth as the next middle being between God and the earthly living beings, he now
quite takes the standpoint of a Darwinian idea of evolution general, but at the same
time practicing independent criticism of the nature of the establishment and execution
of the same. For this purpose he first tries to delude the contemplation by giving a
conceptual distinction between the organic and the inorganic molecular state, and
then, on the basis of this distinction, develops the assumption of the cosmic state of
matter, from which the molecular organic, and thus all, what we in the ordinary sense
"life" call, emerged. Turning to an examination of Darwin's principles of struggle for
existence and natural selection by adapting to the external conditions of life, he is
quite disposed to give them their meaning. But he can not acknowledge them as the
only and the decisive conditions, partly because they ultimately lead back to the
empirically nowhere demonstrable emergence of the living from the lifeless, partly
because according to them the useful emerged from the accidental and the futile. Still
in the book on the "day view" he sought to illustrate the impossibility of such an
assumption by means of one of his striking parables. A builder who has an unlimited
time at bid waives to have his house executed according to a specific plan. He gives
the builders stones and mortar and instructs them to pile up the stones as randomly as
he likes. Since he has time to wait, yes, after many inappropriate formations even the
wall of a residential building will appear sometime. In fact, after millennia, this event
really does happen. Unfortunately, the builder forgets to give his people a hold, and
so it happens that they ablate the newly formed wall in the next moment. Meanwhile,
his neighbor, who gave the builders a definite plan, has long since become
comfortable. Since he has time to wait, yes, after many inappropriate formations even
the wall of a residential building will appear sometime. In fact, after millennia, this
event really does happen. Unfortunately, the builder forgets to give his people a hold,
and so it happens that they ablate the newly formed wall in the next
moment. Meanwhile, his neighbor, who gave the builders a definite plan, has long
since become comfortable. Since he has time to wait, yes, after many inappropriate
formations even the wall of a residential building will appear sometime. In fact, after
millennia, this event really does happen. Unfortunately, the builder forgets to give his
people a hold, and so it happens that they ablate the newly formed wall in the next
moment. Meanwhile, his neighbor, who gave the builders a definite plan, has long
since become comfortable. that they ablate the newly formed wall in the next
moment. Meanwhile, his neighbor, who gave the builders a definite plan, has long
since become comfortable. that they ablate the newly formed wall in the next
moment. Meanwhile, his neighbor, who gave the builders a definite plan, has long
since become comfortable.
The principles of organic development, so Fechner claims, like the principles of the
explanation of nature in general, must be taken from the phenomena themselves,
before looking for other experiences which can be transferred to them. However, as
such principles inherent in the processes of development, he believes that he is
allowed to look primarily at three: the principle of stability, that of referential
differentiation, and that of diminishing changeability. The next thing we encounter in
the contemplation of living beings is not their variability, but the constancy with
which their states of development are repeated. But in it the principle of stability, in
the same more perfect form in which it manifests itself in the cosmic movements,
operates. so that in this characteristic the organic and the cosmic differ in the same
way from the lower stability of the inorganic. Where changes occur within this
general tendency to repeat the same states of development, they generally always
occupy parts of a system which belong to each other. They take the form of
"preferably differentiations." Thus the organs of the single organism differentiate
themselves by the correlation of their functions, and similarly in nature various
organic species, such as, for example, B. the flower organs of certain plants and the
body shapes and colors of the insects visiting them. According to Fechner, the fight
for existence can only help such a mutual adaptation. once the beginnings of
referential differentiation have occurred; but to regard the origin of the latter as the
result of merely accidental modifications, is in all likelihood contrary. Rather, from
the very beginning, this process must be based on a relationship of the unity of
different organic species with each other, which is completely analogous to the
correlation of the organs of the individual organism. But with this it is stated that the
realm of organisms does not consist of independently existing beings, but that it
belongs to a whole which itself possesses the essential qualities of a living
being. Such a whole is evidently our earth, the individual living parts of which are all
the plants and animals that occur on it. Finally, the principle of " why this struggle in
today's world should not persist in undiminished strength between different as
between similar beings. If, on the other hand, organic evolution were regarded as a
coherent process, then such a different course would be understandable, just as, even
today, the development of individual beings takes place rapidly, and then ever more
slowly. The transition of the cosmo-organic into the molecular-organic movements
will therefore have to be regarded as the stormy beginning of development, and only
gradually did the principle of the tendency toward stability gain increasing
importance for the latter. Such a different course would be understandable, as even
today the development of individual beings is rapid and then slower. The transition of
the cosmo-organic into the molecular-organic movements will therefore have to be
regarded as the stormy beginning of development, and only gradually did the
principle of the tendency toward stability gain increasing importance for the
latter. Such a different course would be understandable, as even today the
development of individual beings is rapid and then slower. The transition of the
cosmo-organic into the molecular-organic movements will therefore have to be
regarded as the stormy beginning of development, and only gradually did the
principle of the tendency toward stability gain increasing importance for the latter.
In this way Fechner in his creation story leads the reader step by step from the
beginning of recognition of the Darwinian idea of evolution to an intuition which, in
its essential relations, is the complete reversal of the prevailing theory. Where it
operates with unlimited random deviations; he demands correlative changes. Where
organic individuals confront each other independently, they are subordinated to the
idea of a more comprehensive organic unity from the beginning. The distinction
between the cosmo-organic and the molecular-organic movement, the concept of the
earth as the great parent organism comprising all earthly creatures, thoughts which
were placed in the foreground in the earlier natural-philosophical writings. they arise
here on the way of an investigation, which apparently only consists in the criticism
and logical development of existing scientific hypotheses. Only after leading the
reader so far does he end with a reference to the "beliefs" that complement the
designed picture of organic evolution; and there it is, summarized in a few pages,
again the whole doctrine of the things of the "heaven and the hereafter," which had
once formed the theme of "Zendavesta," with which this theory of development
concludes.

5. Fechner's psychology.

The fundamentals of Fechner's psychology are contained in his "inner

psychophysics". With this it has already been said that the empirical analysis of the
psychic life which we today assign to psychology plays no role in it, but that it is
essentially a metaphysical psychology. But it is at the same time in the sense that the
question of the relation of the psychical to the physical and the other of the future
destinies of the soul, that is, the psychological justification of the beliefs, dominates
the whole presentation. After Fechner in the discussions on the seat of the soul, in
relation to the monadological and the materialistic view, which justified his
conception of life and inspiration corresponding "synechologische", it is almost
exclusively the concept of the "threshold" in its various applications that occupies
it. His whole psychology, as far as it is concerned with an interpretation of empirical
facts, consists in the application of this concept of threshold to the most varied
psychical processes: to the origin of consciousness in the child, to the change of sleep
and waking, to the passing and coming of ideas , on the wandering of attention, on
the processes of distinction. Here, too, it is the analogy that plays the sole dominant
role. Everything that happens in human consciousness falls for Fechner under the
aspect of a threshold phenomenon; and since our processes of consciousness are
generally changing processes, it is clear that, If one calls any change a rise above a
threshold or a fall below a threshold, that image can never fail. But what is the real
task of psychological analysis, the demonstration of the multiplicity and diversity of
psychic processes, remains entirely in the background: it hides itself behind the
concept of threshold, and at best comes to an inadequate expression in the image of
the upper and lower waves. Fechner's whole interest does not belong to psychology
as such, but for him it is only a part of the philosophy of nature and religion. He does
not want to know how the psychic life itself behaves, but how the "psychophysical
stage structure of the world" is arranged, into which the individual soul is
integrated. That is why he was so interested in the existence of the threshold, in
which he thought he saw the direct proof of the connection between individual
consciousness and a general life of consciousness. Therefore, he also thought that the
task of experimental psychology was basically exhausted by the examination and
proof of Weber's law. As carefully as he studied to the end of his life, the works that
related to this topic, he left everything else unread. He could never be moved by the
chronometric attempts to learn about the observations of association, memory,
etc. The task of experimental psychology is basically exhausted by the examination
and proof of Weber's law. As carefully as he studied to the end of his life, the works
that related to this topic, he left everything else unread. He could never be moved by
the chronometric attempts to learn about the observations of association, memory,
etc. The task of experimental psychology is basically exhausted by the examination
and proof of Weber's law. As carefully as he studied to the end of his life, the works
that related to this topic, he left everything else unread. He could never be moved by
the chronometric attempts to learn about the observations of association, memory,
etc.
If Fechner had achieved in his "inner psychophysics" what he had aspired to, if he
had succeeded in proving the threshold concept in the sense he had established as the
dominant and all-explanatory of psychology, he would have led his philosophy to a
goal, which actually according to his own explanation, the task of philosophy
passed. For this philosophy, after all, was something more than a mere belief; it
would have possessed a scientific basis in "internal psychophysics" which perhaps
could not bear all the conclusions it had drawn, but the next ones, and especially
those who were growing up related to the step structure of this world. If Fechner did
not achieve this goal, because the "internal psychophysics" proved inadequate, To
solve the problems of psychology, so his philosophy basically won only that character
of a belief that she had claimed for themselves from the beginning. But in his later
writings, especially in psychophysics, Fechner had actually given up this original
program of faith in the endeavor to enforce his conviction. He had made an attempt to
elevate his philosophy to exact science. actually abandoned this original program of
faith. He had made an attempt to elevate his philosophy to exact science. actually
abandoned this original program of faith. He had made an attempt to elevate his
philosophy to exact science.

6. Fechner's relationship to spiritism.

Fechner's firm belief in the survival of the spirit in the sphere of his life on earth
brought him into direct contact with the ideas of mental remote effects, clairvoyance,
apparitions, as they have at any time influenced philosophical mysticism. Here, too,
Fechner is a follower of natural philosophy from the beginning of the nineteenth
century, who zealously cultivated, in men such as Ennemoser, GH Schubert and
others, this supposedly magical and mystical side of psychic life. Especially in the
third volume of "Zendavesta" he refers repeatedly to the writings of those named, as
well as to Justinus Kerner's and other communications on somnambulists, to
Swedenborg's "Heaven and Hell", etc. He, of course, quotes these testimonies only as
"views", which are similar to his own (Zendavesta III, p. 78ff.), without advocating
the factuality of what is said in such mystical writings. But since he uses them as
arguments, he must have found some actual basis to be probable. It was inevitable,
then, that in the later years the followers of new mystical tendencies and doctrines
would call upon Fechner as a witness or request an examination of the allegedly
wonderful facts. Thus, as he himself complains, Reichenbach "stuck on his heels"
with his odle-doctrine and almost forced him, against his will, to allow himself to
participate in his experiments (Memoirs of the last days of the Odlehre and its author,
1876). , Similarly, spiritism later gave him some unpleasant lessons. Of course, he did
not wonder that even the spiritualists turned to him. On the contrary, in his diary he
once wrote: "To some extent it amazes me that my views on the hereafter, as I have
developed in the 'book of life after death' and in more detail in the third part of
'Zendavesta', despite their relationship with the views of the spiritualists and
compatibility with the spiritualistic attempts, have remained in the circle of the
spiritualists themselves as well as unseen, which incidentally should not be a reason
for me to mix in their literature. " in the circle of the spiritualists themselves so
well. have gone unnoticed; which by the way should not be a reason for me to mix
myself with their literature. " in the circle of the spiritualists themselves so well. have
gone unnoticed; which by the way should not be a reason for me to mix myself with
their literature. "
As little as Fechner's steps in spiritualist circles may have been widespread,
invitations to participate in spiritualist meetings were made to him by the followers of
this movement, especially in the years 1877-78, from various sides. But he had
become more cautious since the Zendavesta. Of the scientific weapons of
"psychophysics," he promised himself greater success at this time than the dubious
manifestations of the "magical spiritual life"; and he therefore consistently rejected
such invitations. One day Fr. Zöllner, the well-known astrophysicist, a little wreath,
to which besides some other colleagues also Fechner and W. Weber belonged, was
surprised by a guest, - this guest was the well-known American medium Slade. Thus,
Fechner almost involuntarily witnessed and participated in several spiritualist
sessions. I have two files of Fechner's own hand on these sessions, a detailed diary
kept by him from November 1877 to January 1878, in which he reports carefully after
each session on what he saw and the impression he made, and one a letter to me dated
12 June, 1879, in which he wrote his final words on spiritualism, filling twelve
narrowly-written sheets. Since this letter agrees objectively, and sometimes even
literally, with the remarks later devoted to this subject in The Day View, it no longer
offers any particular interest at present. All the more interesting and characteristic of
Fechner's " Attention in faith as well as in unbelief "is the diary.First of all, the
impressions he receives from Slade's art are overwhelmingly unfavorable, after all the
known achievements, the slate writing under the table, the lifting of tables and chairs,
etc., have been presented several times He remarked, "If I should go into the general
character of the productions that have been presented, I am, on the whole, impressed
by the cleverly executed playfulness, composed of various interesting tricks, whereby
the player always keeps the strings in his hand and no deviation the circle which he
now knows how to control. There was no question at all of a scientific investigation
of the phenomena presented. all conditions were missing. We just had to watch, or, if
involved ourselves, just carry out what Slade had suggested. The amendments
proposed by us were not taken, and yet an exact examination would only have to be
carried out in such a way that the circumstances and modes of the experiments were
modified and directed as far as possible from certain points of view. "
In these sentences probably also the position is designated, which took with
Fechner W. Weber first against the Slade'schen experiments opposite. Something
happened, as Fechner reports, Zöllner, who had long been convinced he was moved
to tears, but also shook the doubts of the previously skeptical observers: Zöllner had
to his hypothesis of the four-dimensional spirit world to test, designed to have knots
knotted by the spirits in a cord sealed at its end without loosening the seal. And this
experiment was apparently successful! Weber and Fechner also considered this an
"experimentum crucis". But while Zöllner greeted the result with enthusiasm,
Fechner reluctantly complied. The uneasy impression outweighed him, that if these
apparitions were to prove to be true, the silly and silly character of the latter would
awaken an unworthy idea of the world of spirits, which was an unpleasant antithesis
to his own ideas about survival after death. Thus he helped himself, as he knew
nothing of the "experimentum crucis", with the assumption that these were abnormal,
pathological occurrences, by which one should not allow the outlook on the
otherworld to wither away. It is the position expressed at the end of the "day view":
"The day view can exist with and without spiritism, but would rather exist without it
than with it, for if it meets in important points with it and supports it could search,
yes,
Considering how much Fechner endeavored throughout his life to find testimonies
for his world-view, wherever he could offer himself, one can not but admire the
objectivity with which he confronts the spiritualistic demonstrations, and with the He,
even after having to submit to the alleged experimentum crucis, considers the value
of this testimony to be more negative than positive: he would rather do without it than
that it can be based to some extent on it. If, finally, he declared himself overcome by
that experiment, and, of course, had to admit that other alleged manifestations of the
spirit were not possibly based on deception, then by the way, in addition to his
principle of absolute prejudice, The fact that he found it hard to believe that a man
who had the outside of an honest man was a vulgar deceiver was also decisive. If,
therefore, Fechner had read the communications which, years later, had published the
widow of a servant who had accompanied Slade on his travels (as far as I remember
in the present), he would probably, in his initial judgment, say that it was
Taschenspieler art pieces handle, have stood still. According to these reports, Slade
had been "rubber man" but had to give up practicing this profession because of a
slight stroke. So he had become the "medium". While his hands on the table calmly
with those of the so-called "observer" together to the "chain" closed, he performed all
the tricks under the table with his legs and feet, the latter wearing shoes without soles
and silk stockings, so that he could use his toes as a finger. The shingles, the lifting of
tables and chairs, of course, were easy to carry out in this way, and other players, who
had not accidentally gone through the rubber-man's preschool, could at least explain
in good conscience that these achievements were impossible by ordinary
trickery , Even the mystery of how he accomplished the "experimen- tional crucis"
with the four knots in the sealed cord, has hardly taken Slade to the grave,