5 o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



that there is no universe outside ourselves and that everything is a 

 figment of the imagination of the observer. The electron theory pos- 

 tulates a universe of energy outside ourselves. It does not deny the 

 existence of the table; quite the reverse, it asserts it and then offers a 

 detailed description of it, and why it has the properties which it has. 

 This is more than any materialistic theory can do. The electron theory 

 affirms the existence of what we ordinarily call matter. It defines, 

 describes, explains these things, ordinarily called matter, in a clear and 

 logical manner, on the basis of experimental evidence, as a mode of 

 motion. It opposes the use of the word matter, solely because that 

 word has come to stand, not only for the object, but also for the as- 

 sumption that there is something there which is not energy. 



Another groundless objection is offered by the materialists. They 

 say this electron theory is clever, perhaps plausible, but very vague and 

 hopelessly theoretical. Of course it is theoretical, but it is a theory 

 more intimately connected with experimental facts than any other 

 theory regarding the ultimate constituents. One departs further from 

 known facts in assuming the existence of a something to be called 

 matter. What is this matter which so many insist that we must 

 assume? jSTo one can define it otherwise than in terms of energy. 

 But forms of energy are not matter as the materialist understands the 

 word. Starting with any object and removing one by one its proper- 

 ties, indubitably forms of energy, we are finally left with a blank, a 

 sort of a hole in creation, which the imagination is totally unable to 

 fill in. The last resort is the time-honored definition, ' matter is the 

 carrier of energy/ but it is impossible to describe it. The assumption 

 that matter exists is made then because there must be a carrier of 

 energy. But why must there be a carrier of energy? This is an 

 assertion, pure and simple, with no experimental backing. Before we 

 have a right to make it we should obtain some matter ' strictly pure ' 

 and free from any energy, or, at least, we should be able to demonstrate 

 on some object what part of it is the energy and what part the matter, 

 the carrier of the energy. "We have not done this, we have never 

 demonstrated anything but forms of energy, and so we have no evi- 

 dence that there is any such thing as matter. To say that it exists is 

 theorizing without experimental evidence as a basis. The materialistic 

 theory postulates energy and also matter, both theoretical if you will; 

 the electron theory postulates energy only. Therefore the electron 

 theory is the less theoretical and the less vague of the two. 



From the philosophical standpoint, having deprived an object of 

 all that we know about it, all forms of energy, there remains what may 

 be called the 'residuum of the unknown.' We are not justified in 

 saying that nothing remains; we can only say nothing remains which 

 affects, either directly or indirectly, any of our senses through which 

 we become cognizant of the external universe. If the materialist 



