MAN, AN UNFINISHED ARTICLE.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 February 1924, Page 4

MAN, AN UNFINISHED ARTICLE.

SIR OLIVER LODGE’S VIEW

LIVERPOOL, Sent. 17 Man, according to Sir Oliver l-odge, at a British Association service at Sefton Bark l’re-bylerinn Chuteli today. is an unfinished artichb He said that among the imiiien-ities of the Universe man might appear insignificant and lie was hampered by hi, animal ancestry, lie bad mmii to routcml against and overcome. Sometimes be seemed evil and ugly, but he was immature, lie we in the process of making, and unfinished thing, were often ugly. Mini was comparatively a recent coim-i to the planet and was far Irom perfect, but be bad in him the seeds of majesty. He was endowed with free will. He was like mechanism constrained to do right, .lie had the power of going wrong, and he could utilise that power to bis own hurt. It lie had no power of going wrong lie would lie morelv ported mechanism. He would not have a kinship with Divinity. Man was related on Ids bodily side to the animals, Dili on his mental and spiritual side he had some incipient kinship with Deity, lie had infinite possibilities of development, and when the work was complete, through the slow process of the ages, they would see that the product was worth all the labour and sacrifice and pain which seemed to have been neeessary to bring it about. "M.v own researches,” he continued, “have led me to a firm conviction of the fundamental belief's of Christianity. Every star is a sun, and like our sun each probably has planets revolving round it. ft is infinitely improbable that, with all the worlds scattered about space, this little world is the only one with rational creatures upon it. "There is one system of law and order running throughout the universe. The laws of physics and light hold in the most distant star, and there are the same chemical elements. This proves that the whole universe is subject to one Guiding Power. _ Our Cosmos is the Milky Way, and beyond it

there are other stellar systems with other milky ways at distances inerctTihly remote. EARTH d 00,000.000 YEARS OIJ). ‘•The atom is so small that a thimbleful of water has as many atoms as there are thimfdes of water in the Atlantic Ocean, yet the electrons of the atom are not crowded and are moving in a beautiful system of law and order similar to that of the planets. There is plenty of spare in the atom. The mmuteness is such that we are beginning to wonder if there is any limit to smallness as there is no limit to greatness. “The age of the earth is estimated at -100,000,000 years. We shall know exactly with a little further progress. “It is easy to imagine a meehanieal universe, but that would not be a high universe which must contain creatures who go right not because they must hut because they will.”