THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 109 



yond this, as they gave to them a concrete reality. 

 This conception still persists, although Sir J. J. Thom- 

 son showed years ago that no known system of me- 

 chanical forces would keep such a system of force-lines 

 in equilibrium and Professor Lorentz now says they 

 cannot really exist but are fictions of the imagination. 

 It seems rather futile, if such be the normal his- 

 tory of hypothetical models, to inflict on us the labor of 

 learning abstruse hypotheses which continually revamp 

 old metaphysical terms and merely dress them up in 

 new transcendental symbols. It is a valuable exercise 

 to strip hypotheses of their technical phraseology; to 

 change those words which deceive our minds into be- 

 lieving that a clear idea has been conveyed, when, in 

 fact, they have merely been wrenched from any real 

 significance. Thus Sir Oliver Lodge says that the 

 ether is very massive. This definition at once increases 

 our belief in its reality since it conveys the impression 

 that the ether is tangible and impenetrable, something 

 like a vast globe of rock. And we must stop to think 

 before we realize that whatever the ether may be, it 

 must be just the opposite to our ordinary ideas of mas- 

 sive things. Or what clear idea is conveyed by Pro- 

 fessor Einstein's definition that vacuous space contains 

 radiant energy which is an entity of the same kind as 

 matter? Does he not add to the difficulty when he says 

 further, that the difference between a vacuum and the 

 ether is that the latter is a vacuum transmitting radiant 



