Page:Wittgenstein - Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922.djvu/181

Rh the picture. (For this holds of every picture of this kind.) But this does characterize the picture, the fact, namely, that it can be completely described by a definite net of definite fineness.

So too the fact that it can be described by Newtonian mechanics asserts nothing about the world; but this asserts something, namely, that it can be described in that particular way in which as a matter of fact it is described. The fact, too, that it can be described more simply by one system of mechanics than by another says something about the world.

Mechanics is an attempt to construct according to a single plan all true propositions which we need for the description of the world.

Through their whole logical apparatus the physical laws still speak of the objects of the world.

We must not forget that the description of the world by mechanics is always quite general. There is, for example, never any mention of particular material points in it, but always only of some points or other.

Although the spots in our picture are geometrical figures, geometry can obviously say nothing about their actual form and position. But the network is purely geometrical, and all its properties can be given a priori.

Laws, like the law of causation, etc., treat of the network and not of what the network describes.

If there were a law of causality, it might run: "There are natural laws".

But that can clearly not be said: it shows itself.

In the terminology of Hertz we might say: Only uniform connexions are thinkable.