A MILESTONE IN METAPHYSICS
Ether and Reality. By Sir Oliver Lodge. (Hodder ar.d Stoughton. 3s. fici.) ONCE when I was a very small boy I went to my father and said with pride, " I can spell ` cannon,' " and proceeded to do so. After being duly impressed, as was expected of him, he said, " Yes, but can you spell ` projectile ' ? " I protested that I had never heard of that, to which he replied, " Well, the more you know, the more you find out how little you know."
Sir Oliver Lodge might well have taken this remark as - the text of his book, Ether and Reality, for notwithstanding the wealth of information it contains, hardly a page occurs without the phrases, " we do not know we cannot yet tell " " the full meaning has still to be discovered • " and so on. But this is very under.
standable for many reasons. Science, as we know it to-day. is a mere infant in comparison to other structures of civilization, and many of its most important departments are less than half a century old, so that there has hardly been time to discover " all about anything whatever." All the same it would not be too much to say that miracles have been performed.
The nature of Reality has always been the field of the metaphysical philosopher, while the scientist has been con- cerned primarily with observable facts, and the inferences that can, be drawn therefrom. At last a bridge is being constructed, and a meeting of the two schools of thought will be made possible, and this bridge rests on the two concepts relativity and the ether. It is not long since the educated world received the intellectual shock of Einstein's Theory of Relativity (though it was somewhat older than the publicity would have led one to believe). Without entering into a discussion of this abstruse subject, it will suffice to say that the theory has at present two aspects of great importance : first, that it helps us to understand a good deal more about the ether, and secondly that it has considerably altered the determinist concept of the Universe.
The main discovery of the adventurers in these new regions is how immense and how unexplored the land is, and Sir Oliver keeps this perpetually in front of us. It is remarkably difficult to envisage exactly what we mean when we talk of ether and its properties. As everyone knows, matter, or what might be termed in common parlance " real stuff," is com- posed of exceedingly small bodies called atoms, which are separated by relatively huge spaces ; that is, matter is dis- continuous, and we have good reason for believing that energy, such as the heat from the sun, is also composed of minute separate units, but ether is quite continuous. Moreover, it is
very substantial, about a thousand times more so than lead, though we move in it freely, just as fish do in the deepest waters of thy ocean. This alters our whole conception of matter, as the new knowledge of electricity; magnetism and radiation have revolutionized the theories of energy. In a word, the Universe has taken on an altogether different aspect. The immutability of many " Natural Laws ".has fallen froth the state of grace to give place to a less rigid determinism, and the absolutist philosophers must find new ground to stand on. This is not to say that absolute determiniSm has vanished frOm scientific thought, however; but that its scope has altered, and that it requires restatement in other terms.
The most notable result of all this new work is that it appears as a definite growth and evolution in human thought, and not simply a sight-of the other side of the shield. One is reminded of the evolution of musical appreciation. The ancient Greeks had no harmony in their music, and it is thought they would have been unable to appreciate the ideas now expressed in harmonic form. To-day we have advanced to a stage in which we can Understand the most .coiriplictited harmonic expression, as; for example; that of StraVinsky. This is parallel to the evolution of the modern attitude to the idea of the Universe in that a more complicated appreciation '14 possible,- btit even more,--We 'Cali no*. have. an entirely new outlook. _ It.is as if—to return to the musical simile—orches- tration had just been discovered, with all the' other Musical paraphernalia already available.
This little book illuminates these extraordinary conceptions hi such 'a clear way that, even bearing in mind- Sir Oliver Lodge's-deserved reputation for lucid writing, one cannot but be, surprised, and from surprise one advances to- stimulation. There are some passages, however, to which exception may be taken—namely, those dealing with mind and spirit. In.his treatment of the strictly scientific aspects, Sir Oliver express6 the agreed opinions of the bulk of scientific workers, but with regard to the spiritual matters he is stating his own, and whether one agrees with these or not, one must regard them as not being in alignment with the strict scientine thought of the present, or perhaps, indeed, within the scope thereof.. He says, for example " There is evidence which shows we are really independent (of our bodies), that we continue in exist- ence, and can leave our bodies behind." We may believe' On various grounds that existence after death is indeed a fact, but we protest that there is not evidence in the scientific sense, which admits of test. There is no evidence that our " spirits pass on " which is in any way comparable to,. say, the evi- dence for the inheritance of Mendelian characters ; that is, which would be acceptable to the scientific mind (which is divorced from questions of belief); and it is at best gra- tuitous of Sir Oliver to express his personal beliefs in such a way as to imply that they find the same acceptance as is accorded to the ideas in the other part of the book.
- With this exception, however, we may compliment him Whole-heartedly on an exposition which makes this most difficult subject understandable by anyone who lacks previous
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