Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/494

480 FEEDINAND TONNIES : we have already referred, corresponds to a simplification of thought itself. The effort to attain this passes through the whole epoch, down to our own time. It finds satisfaction chiefly in the mechanical interpretation of corporeal things. Behind this lies the striving after technical sway over matter and the " natural forces ". Where the mechanical explanation of processes is not adequate in chemistry more weight is given to the analysis of matter into ultimate elements and elementary units : analysis on behalf of synthesis. The whole tendency opposes man to all the rest of nature. Man thinks primarily and principally about matter and motion, the connexion and connexions of which he then learns,, in order that he may then think of himself, i.e. may will, may make matter and motion serviceable to his ends. To matter and motion belong also the human body and its life ; man learns about both for the sake of medicine. Every- thing is machinery ; but in the human machine alone there dwells the thinking I, in an incomprehensible way. it is true, but able to direct partially this machine which is casually connected with him, and also to interfere with all the other mechanism. The thinking I, which is of quite another nature, yet subjects to its knowledge and w r ill a dead matter which is alien and indifferent to it, even that of animals and plants. This idea, the necessity of which we sufficiently comprehend when we learn to understand it in its dependence upon actual historical development, has found its classical expres- sion in the system of Descartes, which has formulated these principles in an almost perfect manner : the two opposite extremes which are always issuing anew from them, Phe- nomenalism (or Idealism, or whatever we may call this "theory of knowledge " latterly even Realism) and Materi- alism (in its vulgar form) are only modifications in which the fundamental character repeats itself less clearly. It is Descartes also whose influence upon terminology has been most radically destructive and levelling ; if others compete with him, there is yet no doubt that his success has been greatest in this respect. He was received into the schools this it the inner meaning of Wolffianism and though consequently thoughts and terms proceed again from simple to complex forms (as especially in the particular natural sciences), yet the strict rationalistic type maintains itself. Descartes gave the keynote of clear and distinct concepts, banishing all others. In its most important application, that to material nature, this means the exclusive validity of mechanical principles. But even in Physics and much more in Chemistry, this revolu- tionary claim meets with hot opposition, which is overcome