THE NATURE OF MATTER 55 



That is, in point of fact, the prevailing attitude among our 

 authorities. I have given elsewhere (HaeckeVs Critics 

 Answered, p. 43) a sufficient array of quotations to show 

 this. Not only our leading biologists, Professor Ray- 

 Lankester, Sir J. Burdon-Sanderson, and Sir W. T. 

 Thiselton-Dyer, argue in this way, but two of Sir Oliver 

 Lodge's most distinguished colleagues in physics, Sir A. 

 Riicker and Sir J. Dewar, have insisted on it from the 

 presidential chair of the British Association. Professor 

 Lionel Beale, the only prominent biologist in this country 

 who more or less agrees with Sir Oliver Lodge, bewails 

 repeatedly the "materialism" of all his colleagues. One of 

 our first psychologists, Professor J. Ward, says that " the 



old theory of a special vital force has for the most part 



been abandoned as superfluous." I drew the attention of 

 Sir Oliver Lodge to all these statements in the Hibbert 

 (July, 1905). He replies by ignoring all my quotations 

 save one (from America), and representing my summary of 

 them as an eccentric and ignorant opinion of my own 

 (p. 131). Nowhere in his work does he even hint to the 

 reader that his opinion has been drastically condemned by 

 the leading biologists of this country; on the other hand, he 

 persistently represents Haeckel as "abandoned by the 

 retreating ranks of his colleagues." That is one way of 

 setting right the " misleading statements " of Professor 

 Haeckel. 



However, Sir Oliver Lodge has two things to say for him- 

 self at this point. In the first place, when I represent him 

 as holding that the "vital force" needs guidance, he 



