Theory of Complexes of Elements

An elementary proposition of Machism. Mach, in earlier times, claimed that the world is made up of sensations. To disguise the bold subjective and idealist point of view, he put forward the concept of “elements”. “Elements” according to him are subjective sensations of human beings, including color, sound, smell and heat. To disguise this, he classified elements as both physical and psychological. For example, when people notice the dependence relation between color and the source of light, color becomes physical. The connection of color with light is a problem of physics, and that of color with retina is a problem of physiology. Color is a physical element when connected to light and becomes psychological when connected to retina. According to Mach, physical and psychological elements are both interconnected, and are sensations. Mach, here, described sensations as “elements” to claim that his theory was a “new theory” beyond idealism and materialism.

In Mach’s opinion, feeling is an element, and complexes of elements (complexes of sensations) constitute matters. Element and sensation are primary, and matter is secondary. Mach said: “Sensations are not ‘symbols of things’. The ‘thing’ is rather a mental symbol for a complex of sensations of relative stability. Not the things (bodies) but colours, sounds, pressures, spaces, times (what we usually call sensations) are the real elements of the world”. In The Analysis of Sensations (1886), Mach declared more clearly that “Bodies do not produce sensations, but complexes of elements (complexes of sensations) make up bodies.” Here, Mach replaced “sensation” with “element” to conceal the subjective idealism tendency of the proposition “bodies are complexes of elements”.

Thus, we can see that this theory holds that everything in the world is not objective reality, but complexes of sensations. The world is made up of feelings. The sum of feelings is the whole content of everything in the world. If there are no feelings any more, things will no longer exist. From this point of view, Machism aggressively attacks the materialist concept of materialism, believing that it is totally unnecessary to “assume” the existence of objective matters apart from feelings, in an attempt to remove the cornerstone of materialism and deny the objective existence of the material world. Lenin pointed out that “Ernst Mach’s doctrine that things are complexes of sensations is subjective idealism and a simple rehash of Berkeleianism”. The absurdity of this theory lies in that “starting from such a premise it is impossible to arrive at the existence of other people besides oneself: it is the purest solipsism”. Lenin also said that element “is idealism vainly seeking to hide the nakedness of its solipsism under the cloak of a more ‘objective’ terminology”. Berkeley argued sensations cannot exist without people’s minds to perceive them; since bodies are merely sensations and “combinations of sensations”, neither can they exist independently without minds. Thus, Berkeley argued “to be is to be perceived”, a pure subjective and idealistic formula. Mach’s proposition was actually a literal repetition of Berkeley’s.