88 THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE AND MIND 



Professor Ray-Lankester retained a commanding authority 

 on the phenomena of life, or a Professor Sully on the 

 phenomena of mind, it was still open for a thinker, who 

 was expert in neither branch of science, seriously to oppose 

 them in regard to the essence of life and mind. The 

 language which still lingers in certain schools of metaphysics 

 encourages the idea, and the influence of Hume on English 

 science has been almost equally mischievous. Professor 

 Karl Pearson's Grammar of Science still supports the 

 distinction, and a quite recent and competent writer on 

 physics, Mr. Whetham, repeats confidently that the science 

 deals only with the " phenomena " of matter, and reaches 

 the outrageous conclusion that the ultimate form of matter is 

 11 immaterial," the ultimate ground of nature " supernatural." 

 In his important address to the British Association in 

 1901 Sir Arthur Riicker, one of our ablest physicists, made 

 it perfectly clear that this is a false conception of scientific 

 work. He claimed, in the name of physics, that his science 

 dealt with objective realities when it spoke of " atoms " and 

 " ether," and was giving us real and minute information 

 about them. Few scientific men now imagine that the 

 " essences " of things are shrouded from our gaze by a 

 surrounding veil of " phenomena "; or that, as Plato taught 

 2,000 years ago, our senses perceive the outer shell of 

 phenomena, and our intuitive and purely spiritual faculties 

 pierce to the kernel or "essence." All this is getting 

 antiquated. " Phenomenon " means " appearing." We are 

 slowly but surely recognising that to talk of " appearances " 

 divorced from " realities " is nonsense. It is the realities 



