ADDRESS DRI.IVRRRD AT ANNUAL MEF.TING. 27 



grasp of the possibilities of the vibrations of the ether, and we 

 had got a long way, no doubt, but Rentjen and his collaborators, 

 who were not hide-bound, have compelled us to open our minds 

 to the possibilities of vibrations of the extent of which we are by 

 no means satisfied yet. 



We must have theories ; we cannot make progress without 

 them ; even a false theory may be better than none. Take for 

 example, the theories of the alchemists ; they were false, no 

 doubt (though the possibility of transmutation seems now by no 

 means so unthinkable as it did a while ago) ; yet false as they 

 were, they served as an encouragement to the study of natural 

 phenomena and indirectly laid the foundations for modern 

 science. 



Then again, poi^ular ideas are mostly more or less wrong, 

 but they embody an unconscious and unscientific summing up of 

 experience that it is rarely wise altogether to ignore. Forty 

 years ago the Italian peasant was nearer the mark in calling 

 cholera " aquetta " and attributing it to poisoned wells, than the 

 more educated people who learnedly discoursed of " blue haze " 

 and so forth. Long ago experience had shown that there was 

 some connection between malaria and mosquitos, improbable as it 

 seemed to scientific thought. 



Let us therefore hold fast to our theories — to our ideas — 

 taking infinite pains to choose the best ; those that are alike 

 most far-reaching and most based on experience ; yet never 

 holding them as absolute truth, never saying that something is 

 impossible because it will not come within their limits. Even 

 though something l)e unknowable, let us be very careful not to 

 say that it cannot be. 



It may be said that this is all mysticisin and dreams. 

 Possibly, and yet it may be that there is an ignorance worse 

 than dreams. The Germans make a distinction, untranslateable 

 into English, between das mystic — the feeling after a truth too 

 great for comprehension — and das mysticismus — which is, to put it 

 vulgarly, muddle-headed dreaminess. It is the first that I wish 

 to plead for in science, especially to beginners filled with a sense 

 of how much they know. I would urge such ever to hold fast to 

 theories ; without them progress is impossible. Try and grasp 

 the ideal that underlies the real, and is more true than it ; but 



