THE NATURE OF MATTER 47 



should be able to find many inaccuracies in it. Curiously 

 enough, his criticism of it is only impressive where he quite 

 misrepresents Haeckel. We have seen this as regards the 

 atom and the element. He is hardly more just with 

 Haeckel's ascription of " souls " to atoms. He speaks of 

 his "grotesque assertion" that atoms are moved by "internal 

 likes and desires." He " refrains from characterising the 

 sentence as a physicist should." The word "desire "is a 

 subtle importation of his own. On the next page (48) he 

 makes Haeckel ascribe "life and mind and consciousness" 

 [italics mine] to the atoms. If that were so, there would be 

 some ground for his disdain. But turn to Haeckel once 

 more. On p. 64 of the Riddle he expressly and vehemently 

 repudiates the theory that the atoms are endowed with con- 

 sciousness. He has a long passage on the subject, and 

 makes it frequently clear that, when he ascribes " will " and 

 " sensation " to the atoms, it is " unconscious " (he italicises 

 the word) will and sensation. His whole theory of " likes 

 and dislikes " and " passion " in the atom, which Sir Oliver 

 Lodge so contemptuously spurns on the ground ,'that it 

 is literal, is a figure of speech taken from Goethe's 

 beautiful Wahlvenvandtschaften, as Haeckel himself indi- 

 cates. To borrow Sir Oliver's convenient phrase : " I 

 refrain from characterising the procedure as a humane critic 

 should." 



Finally, there is the only physical theorem in the Riddle 

 with which Sir Oliver Lodge was really called upon to deal. 

 This is " the law of substance " a combination of the 

 inductive laws of the conservation of matter and the 



