SIR OLIVER LODGE'S ADDRESS 



II.— THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 



By H. S. SHELTON, B.Sc 



Comment on Sir Oliver Lodge's broad philosophical survey of 

 the field of science, as might, perhaps, have been expected, has 

 been concentrated on one point. Incidentally, in one short 

 paragraph, this year's " boss scientist " (as Lord Rayleigh so 

 fittingly put it) stated that the study of psychical research had 

 convinced him that human personality survives bodily death. 

 There is, needless to say, nothing new in the belief, nor in 

 psychical research, and every one acquainted with Sir Oliver 

 Lodge was well aware beforehand that such was his personal 

 opinion. There is, in the address, no discussion of the evidence. 

 The opinion is stated in very few words. It might, indeed, 

 well be ignored as a minor feature were it not that the journalistic 

 instinct of many critics has magnified it so as to make it appear 

 the main topic of the address. Thus the campaign of journalistic 

 headlines compels the writer, much against his inclination, to 

 devote some space to the well-worn theme. 



In so doing, it is as well, even though superfluous, to preface 

 such remarks by saying that the subject is one on which the 

 writer is much less competent to speak than Sir Oliver Lodge. 

 Sir Oliver Lodge, in spite of his many scientific achievements, 

 really has, during more than thirty years, found the leisure to 

 study the details of the evidence investigated by the Society for 

 Psychical Research. Of such matters the writer knows little 

 and cares less. His only qualifications for making any comment 

 whatever are some knowledge of psychology, a careful study 

 (several years ago, which has not recently been renewed) of that 

 monumental volume by the late F. W. H. Myers, Human 

 Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death, and such common 

 sense as nature has endowed him with and circumstances 

 allowed him to retain. For what such qualifications are worth, 

 he will now say, as briefly as may be, how the statement 

 appears to him. 



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