THE NATURE OF MATTER 49 



at any given period." Is it Haeckel who gives this "almost 

 axiomatic and self-evident " form to the law of " the per- 

 sistence of being"? No, it is Sir Oliver Lodge (p. 101), 

 with another object in view (the immortality of the soul). 

 It is the same Sir Oliver Lodge who, when Haeckel presses 

 the law of substance, tells us that " there is a certain 

 plausibility in the idea, pure guess or assumption though it 

 be "(p. 34). 



Then Sir Oliver Lodge complains that Haeckel draws 

 illegitimate conclusions from his law of substance. He 

 considers " that they solve the main problem of the 

 universe, and that they suffice to replace the Deity himself." 

 On the first point I will only quote a sentence from Haeckel's 

 work: "Can we affirm to-day that the marvellous progress 

 of modern cosmology has solved this 'problem of substance,' 



or at least that it has brought us nearer to the solution? 



We grant at once that the innermost character of nature is 

 just as little understood by us as it was by Anaximander and 

 Empedocles 2,400 years ago" (p. 134). On the second 

 point I need only say that Haeckel does not " replace the 

 Deity " at all. In quoting Haeckel's words about " the 

 godless world-system of the modern scientist," Sir Oliver 

 Lodge unfortunately leaves out the brief antecedent sentence, 

 which explains that by atheism he means the denial of "a 

 personal, extra-mundane Deity." If that is a shocking 

 conclusion, many of our theologians even are in a bad case. 

 Does Sir Oliver Lodge repudiate it ? " One may reverently 

 say that the Deity is not to be considered apart from the 

 universe, but rather and I will not say a part of the 



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