Chapter XIX (part 3)

We all know this, and the only thing we can do is to try not to think about the existence of these problems, to forget about them. We do so as a rule, but this does not annihilate them. They continue to exist, and at any given moment we may turn to them and try on them the rigidity and force of our scientific method . And every time, at such an attempt, we find that our scientific method is not equal to these problems. By its aid we can discover the chemical composition of remote stars; can photograph the skeleton within the human body, invisible to the human eye; can invent a floating mine which can be controlled from a distance by means of electrical waves, and can in this way annihilate in a moment hundreds of lives; but by the aid of this method we cannot tell what the man standing beside us is thinking about. No matter how much we may weigh, sound or photograph a man, we shall never know his thoughts unless he himself tells them to us . BUT THIS IS TRULY QUITE A DIFFERENT METHOD. The sphere of action of the method of exact science is strictly p. 236 limited. This sphere is the world of the immediate experience accessible for man. In the world lying beyond the domain of usual experience exact science with its methods has never penetrated and will never penetrate . The expansion of objective knowledge is possible only in case direct experience is expanded. But in spite of all the growth of objective knowledge science has made not one step in this direction and the border-line of experience remains in the same place . Could science take a single step in this direction, were we able to feel or sense differently, then we might admit that science might move and take two, three, ten, and ten thousand steps. But it has taken not even one , and it is therefore reasonable to believe that it will never take it. The world outside the experience of the five senses is closed to objective investigation, and for this quite definite causes exist. By no means everything that exists can be detected by any of five senses. Objective existence is a very narrowly defined form of existence, and does not by any means exhaust or comprehend existence as a whole. The mistake of positivism consists in the fact that it has recognized as really existing only that which exists objectively, and it has even begun to deny the very existence of all the rest. But what is objectivity? We can define it in this way: because of the properties of our receptivity, or because of the conditions under which our psyche works, we segregate a small number of facts into a definite group. This group of facts represents in itself the objective world, and is accessible to the investigation of science. But in no case does this group represent in itself EVERYTHING THAT IS EXISTING. Extension in space and existence in time constitute the first condition of objective existence. And yet the forms of the extension of a thing in space, and those of its existence in time are created by the cognizing subject, and do not belong to the thing itself. Matter is first of all three-dimensional . This three-dimensionality is the form of our receptivity. Matter of four dimensions would imply a change in the form of our receptivity. Materiality is the condition of existence in space and time, i.e., a condition of existence under which "at one time, and in one place, two similar phenomena cannot occur." This is an exhaustive definition p. 237 of materiality. It is clear that under the conditions known to us, two similar phenomena, occurring simultaneously in one place, will compose one phenomenon. But this is obligatory for those conditions of existence which we know, i.e., for such matter as we perceive. For the universe it is absolutely not obligatory.