Читать книгу Natural Philosophy - Wilhelm Ostwald - Страница 10

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We shall therefore have to recognize realities in abstract ideas in so far as they must rest upon some experiences to be at all intelligible to us. Since the formation of concepts depends upon memories, and these may refer, according to the individual, to very different parts of the same experience of different individuals, concepts always possess an element dependent upon the individual, or a subjective element. This, however, does not consist in the addition by the individual of new parts not found in the experience, but, on the contrary, in the different choice out of what is found in the experience. If every individual absorbed all parts of the experience, the individual, or subjective, differences would disappear. And since scientific experience endeavors to make the absorption of experiences as complete as possible, it aims nearer and nearer to this ideal by seeking to equalize the subjective deficiency of the individual memory through the collocation of as many and as various memories as possible, thus filling in the subjective gaps in experience as far as possible and rendering them harmless.