POSITIVISM IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES 77 And thus they arc not merely related in a straightforward manner as described above. The ^levels^ are also connected in a direction such as molecules—colloids—cells—organs—individuals—societies. Even in the same masses, there exist levels of states corresponding to solids-liquids—gases. The development of science has revealed that each of the above described levels is governed by a law inherent to itself. And just for this reason., one needs individual sciences. It is ^dialectics', however, that is commonly found as the universal law, in quantum mechanics, in Newtonian mechanics, in the evolution of living organisms, the evolution of societies and even in the development of thought. Therefore, it may be regarded as the ^logic of nature." Basing himself on the dialectical view of a strata structure of universe, Sakata.. in 1956,, was able to formulate a composite model of Elementary Particles according to which protons, neutrons, meson and all other elementary particles are made of even more elementary particles. This scheme of Sakata is now firmly established. These particles have been variously called querks, aces, partons. Recent researches into particle physics have shown that Sakata's dialectical view is the most fruitful in describing not only the known world, but also of predicting new ones. This would be impossible starting fr©m the positivist philosophies, which restrict the scientists to sense-data only. As soon as scientific research penetrates into a new and unknown stratum of nature, physical concepts and laws established in the old strata quite often lose their validity. Under sach circumstances, one has to rely mostly on experimental facts. Thus, it is natural that the first step into the new stratum will begin from a stage of phenomenology, that is, a stage of research describing the new phenomena as they are. If a physicist loses himself in the novelty of the new phenomena and neglects completely the reliability of concepts relevant to the old strata^ then he will often fall into skepticism—he questions reality and objective existence itself and is ensnared by positivism or empiricism, believing that only experience constitutes his basis. On the other hand, if he sticks to the concepts and laws of the old strata and pays no attention to any of the new ideas which arise out of the new experiments, then he will be bound to a metaphysical point of view. One finds many examples of 1?oth these tendencies in the history of science at the beginning of this century. For example, a large number of people believed the energetics of Ostwald and the economy of thought professed by Mach, which were criticised by Lenin in his Materialism and Empiric-Criticism. Then, there were severe controversies between these very same people and those who shared the view of the old atomistics, including Boltzmann and Planck. At the time of the birth of quantum mechanics, there was a conflict of opinion between the school of matrix mechanics and that of wave