412 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Very natural, no doubt, but why try to found a new heresy ? 

 We are reminded of the " religion of all sensible men " — " that's 

 what sensible men never tell," certainly not in presidential 

 addresses to the British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science. 



It is with a feeling of relief that we pass to other ground, and 

 proceed to discuss topics with which Sir Oliver Lodge, and the 

 writer, are more competent to deal. No greater injustice could 

 be done to that able and scholarly address than the injustice 

 which has continually been done, to concentrate criticism on 

 its weakest point. To some extent Sir Oliver has himself to 

 thank. He should have remembered that he was not alone in 

 feeling the fascination of creating a sensation, and of discussing 

 matters with which he is scarcely competent to deal. Neverthe- 

 less, it is as well to remind readers of this journal that Sir 

 Oliver Lodge is a man of science, that his address was given to 

 the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and, 

 moreover, that, in dealing with matters of science, he showed 

 not only specialist knowledge, but that broad, clear-sighted, 

 philosophic insight into fundamentals which, even among men 

 of science, is rarely found. It is to this side of the address that 

 attention should be directed, and, on this side, it is worthy of 

 the highest praise. 



It has, for several years, been a favourite theme with the 

 present writer that the abstractions of men of science are often 

 and again mistaken for realities. In mathematical processes, 

 the chain of reasoning is long and involved. In all such 

 reasoning, in whatever sense the conclusions may be true, may 

 be absolutely valid, that sense is not the sense of material 

 concrete reality. Hence all such reasonings, if definite and 

 actual deductions are made from them, must be submitted once 

 more to the concrete process of observation and experiment. 



Simple and obvious as these statements may appear, they 

 have important consequences in all applications of scientific 

 reasoning to philosophy, to cosmology, to the affairs of every- 

 day life. Numerous practical proposals, advocated by men of 

 science and others (especially others) on scientific grounds, if 

 these considerations are fully worked out, appear speculative 

 and unpractical. That all men of science should realise, as the 

 broad-minded and eminent ones do, the real meaning of their 

 results and the limitations of their methods, is one great object 



