48 THE LIMITATIONS OF SCIENCE 



be. This is the vital step in any process of reasoning 

 which attempts to link metaphysical assumption to 

 physical experience. Once taken without challenge, a 

 scientific theory may be developed logically. It is just 

 at this point that the Lucretian atom and the Cartesian 

 vortex fail. Here also Lord Kelvin failed. He proved 

 that no finite force could either create his tiny vortex 

 atom rotating in a f rictionless medium, or, once started, 

 could stop it. He showed it would act as if possessed 

 of many of the essential properties of matter. But, in 

 the process of elaboration, this atom, like all others, 

 became unmanageable from complexity; it failed to 

 account for the electric charges of matter, and finally 

 received a death-blow when Maxwell said a vortex 

 ring might be an analogy to the atom, but at best was 

 merely a mode of motion and not matter as we know it. 

 How, then, is this new protoplasmic element of the 

 universe to be defined so as to satisfy these criticisms, 

 and at the same time avoid making the speculative me- 

 chanical structures in an ether, which Professor Lar- 

 mor deprecates? The founders of the new electrical 

 theory of matter have studied profoundly the laws of 

 nature. They have made many permanent acquisitions 

 to our knowledge; they have elaborated their theory 

 with the greatest ingenuity, and yet the result has been 

 to show that their theory is merely the same as the dis- 

 carded ones, amplified and clothed in new names. The 

 additional complexity, due to the desire to be more 



