THE
POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.
FEBRUARY, 1882.
| THE SEVEN WORLD-PROBLEMS. |
By EMIL DU BOIS-REYMOND.[1]
WHEN, eight years ago, I undertook to address a public sitting of the Association of German Naturalists and Physicians, I hesitated for a long time before deciding to choose the "Limits of our Knowledge of Nature"[2] as my subject. The impossibility, on the one hand, of comprehending the existence of matter and force, and, on the other hand, of explaining consciousness, even in its lowest degree, on a mechanical theory, seemed to me a truism. That even the simplest sensation can not be made comprehensible as the result of any arrangement or movement of matter, has long been recognized by eminent thinkers. Although I knew that false ideas on the last point had been widely diffused, I was almost ashamed to offer so stale a draught, and hoped to awaken interest only through the novelty of my arguments. The reception given my exposition showed me that I had mistaken the condition of the case. Treated coolly at first, my essay soon became the object of numerous criticisms, which seemed to come from a diversity of points of view—from cordial approbation to utter rejection and censure—and the word ignorabimus, in which the investigation culminated, became a kind of philosophical shibboleth.
Flattering as it was to me to see my exposition regarded as a Kantian fact, I must decline the honor, for nothing was contained in it of which any one might not have informed himself by a study of the older philosophical writers. But, since philosophy was perverted by Kant, its culture has taken on so esoteric a character; it has, so far, unlearned the language of common sense and intelligent thought, and
