BEHIND THE VEIL.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1008, 24 December 1910, Page 16

BEHIND THE VEIL.

: —* SIR .OLIVER LODGE'S THEORIES. In his concluding lecture at Birmingham. University on the problems of existence, Sir Oliver Lodge said that people often appeared to think, or at any rate to sing, that they would get through all their, pain and expiation here, and that hereafter would be surfeited with idleness and 'enjoyment. True it was that for the overworked and harrassed multitudes rest was profoundly needful. . Reasonable rest and peace and 'leisure were essential to the fair development of the soul. -They were necessary conditions for thought, for discovery, for meditation, for the fruits of genius, for many of the higher attributes of man, but rest and peace and leisure were very different from idleness, aud hereafter idleness would be absurd. After a, few thousand years the monotony would be' unendurable in any condition of being. Stagnation must be deadly. The soul -must continue to rise, to advance, to exert herself. They were justified in spoculating beyond actual experience, and in; assuming that creative work, with all that it might entail, would ultimately form, part of the highest joy and that lofty spirits, inspired by a supernal vision, and refreshed by periods of Sa.bbatical calm, would enter upon their task witii sublime devotion. Never think that .existence was a placid stream down which tliey might glide without adventures. For a time they might, while character was maturing, but there would come a time when sacrifice was domauded. At all times of stress men and noble women responded to the call. Danger had to be faced, and manhood rose to it, and this would continue throughout eternity.