SCIENCE AND THE UNIVERSE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1853, 12 September 1913, Page 7

SCIENCE AND THE UNIVERSE.

MODERN MATERIALISM. SIR OLIVER LODGE AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION, By TelcsraDh—Press Association— Oouyrieht (Rec. September 11, 11.20 p.m.) London, September 11. At the British Association Congress thcro were three thousand present, Lord Rayleigh presided. Sir Oliver Lodge's inaugural address was directed against modoni materialistic tendencies. He urged belief in ultimate continuity as an essential to science, and emphasised his contention that tho non-appearance of anything perfectly uniform and omnipresent was no argument against its real substantial existence. Sir Oliver Lodge, in his address, argued that timo and spacov must be continuous and tho aether must bo a real physical agent, though we could not observe it because it was omnipresent, uniform, and nll-prevading. He declared tnat the aether was a universal connecting medium binding tho particles of matter together and making a coherent whole instead of a chaotic collection of independent and isolated fragments. It was tho vehicle for the transmission of all force from gravitation down to cohesion and chemical affinity. It was therefore tho storehouse ot potential energy. Ho avowed his belief in the persistence of personality beyond bodily death as was evidenced by psychical research, adding: "We aro deaf and blind to tho linminont grandeur around us unless we have insight enough to appreciate the whole and recognise in tho woven fabric of existence the ever-growing garment of a transcendent God. Tho evidence goes to prove that discarnato intelligences may interact under certain conditions with us on tho material side, and thus' indirectly como within scicntifio ken. Tho British Association meets at Manchester in 1915. The association elects a president on Friday next. Professor Bateson is the only candidate nominated. Sir Oliver Lodge has already told the world that "the boundary between tho two states—tho known and tho unknown (life and death)—is still substantial, but it is wearing thin in places; and, like excavators engaged in "boring a tunnel from opposite ends, wo aTo beginning to hear now and again the strokes of the pickaxes of our comrades of tho other side." "In a summary which we have received from him of the argument of liis forthcoming address (stated the "Daily Mail" of August 0 last), curiosity is stirred by his protest 'against comprehensive negative generalisations,' and his insistence on tho belief 'in ultimate continuity of existence (before and after death) as essential to science.' This at least suggests that he has new evidence to offer, fresh tests to disclose. For all tho cvidenco that has been produced in tho past by him and tho littlo hand of# psychical researchers yields no scientific proof of that larger life whichi is understood by immortality. The vague scribbling and vacuous utterances of alleged 'spooks' and tho quaint 'jigsaw' puzzles of 'cross-cor-respondence' aTe not such proof. Bnt the world must wait on' tenterhooks for a whole month to discover the meaning of these mysterious intimations."