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Die erkenntnistheoretische Analyse dessen, was die Physiker tatsächlich tun, wenn sie physikalische Forschung treiben, läßt folgende Stufen des Erkenntnisvorgangs feststellen: Durchführung von Experimenten. - Zusammenfassung der experimentellen Ergebnisse in Regeln bzw. in mathematischen Formeln. - Aufklärung der logischen Zusammenhänge zwischen verschiedenen in dieser Weise festgestellten Gesetzmäßigkeiten. - Aufstellung möglichst weniger, möglichst umfassender Gesetze, aus denen die sonstigen erkannten Gesetze logisch abgeleitet werden können., Analyzing philosophically what the physicist really does when performing physical research work, we see the following stages of the process of gaining physical knowledge: Performance of experiments. - Condensation of experimental results in rules or laws, especially in mathematical formulae. - Clarifying of logical connections between different laws found in this way. - Formulation of as few as possible, as comprising as possible laws, allowing logical deduction of all known other laws.

The works of Theophrast von Hohenheim, known as Paracelsus, are based on a way of thinking, which he himself calls "philosophia adepta." Although the term appears only in his later works, it still forms his early writing. The common translation of this curious term does not allow any conclusion concerning that way of thinking, but it points to a spiritual surroundings, in which "adeptus" meant the honorary title for the person who achieved the philosophical aim, that is, he who found the "lapis philosophorum", points to the circles of the alchemists. Alchemy was more than only a plump or refined humbug. It was, at least in its possibilities, a doctrine of the metallic nature and its powers, and in this respect it might be called a natural philosophy, even if its adherents very often contented themselves with the quotation or the handing-down of more or less comprehensible recipes. Paracelsus called alchemy one of the four columns on which medicine is based, and he endeavours for an alchemical understanding of all the things of outward nature, just as the more common alchemists and even the great authorities had taken trouble for the understanding of the metallic nature and the possibility of its transmutation. Paracelsus takes over their fundamental conceptions, for instance the famous "Tabula Smaragdina" and the doctrine of Sulphur and Mercury as the "prima materia" of all things. But he does not content himself with the simple tradition of recipes and theories, but out of the traditional terms he creates his philosophia adepta, by which he intends to recognize the unknown powers by the exterior forms of things, powers by which everything is determined, and which in the end are creative powers of God, even if in the sublunar sphere they manifest themselves in a "chemical" manner. The design of the world, which Paracelsus constructs on the basis of alchemy is hardly less sublime than that of our modern atomic physics, whereas the more common alchemists went on occupying themselves with their recipes, which have hardly changed if they have not become less comprehensible and more suspicious. In this respect, the Green Lion (leo viridis) is a symbol of the stagnation of alchemic thought, which, in spite of all the various significances of gold does not go farther than simply gold and metals, and does not, like Paracelsus, dare to grasp the hidden powers in all the things of the outward world.

1. Mit Hilfe der Technik wird in der natürlichen Welt eine künstliche Maschinenwelt errichtet, die notwendig nach den nämlichen Gesetzen funktioniert. Der Gebrauch der Maschinen vermehrt unsere Macht, aber nicht unsere Freiheit. 2. Je größer die Macht, desto größer die Verantwortung. Dieser unmittelbar einleuchtende Satz stößt in der Praxis auf Schwierigkeiten. 3. Moralismus und Mechanismus entsprangen dem rationalistischen Denken der Aufklärung und entsprechen einander. Kant, der Newton der Philosophie, entwickelte eine Ethik, welche für das Maschinenzeitalter zu passen scheint - und sich doch als Freiheitslehre über das mechanistisch-moralistische "Prinzip einer allgemeinen Gesetzgebung" erhebt. 4. Die Ethik sollte nicht nur dem "Einzel"menschen und dem "Kollektiv" gerecht werden, sondern auch die Freiheit des jeweils seine Bewußtseinswelt regierenden "Individuums" respektieren. Kants Kategorischer Imperativ wäre durch einen Imperativ der Humanität zu erweitern., 1. Technical science helps to establish in the world of nature an artificial world of machines, functioning of necessity according to the same laws of nature. The use of machines increases our power, but it does not increase our freedom. 2. The greater the power, the greater the responsibility. This evident axiom meets with difficulties when put into practice. 3. Moralism and mechanism originated in the rational thinking of the Age of Reason and they correspond to each other. Kant, the Newton of philosophy, developed an ethical system which seems to suit the Technical Age - and yet as a doctrine of liberty rises above the mechanistic-moralistic "principle of a general legislation". 4. Ethics should not only meet the demands of man as a single being and the collective, but should also reapect the freedom of the individual, who is each "master of his own consciousness". Kant's Categorical Imperative, too exclusively connected with a general legislation, ahould be completed by a Humanitarian Imperative.