50 THE LIMITATIONS OF SCIENCE 



is certainly unlike any that we have encountered in ex- 

 perimental mechanics or electricity. Let us strip the 

 definition of technical intricacies, of such words as 

 protions and ethereal electric strains, which have the 

 power of confusing the mind and of making us accept 

 statements we do not quite understand. In the first 

 place, Professor Larmor's hypothesis is merely an 

 evasion of the old atomic theory. His continuous, true 

 matter which has absolutely no mechanical attributes 

 and indeed none of any sort, except what he calls the 

 ability to be modified by an electric charge, seems to 

 me, as a substance, but very little removed from my 

 idea of mere extent or abstract geometrical space. 

 Sensible matter which consists of discontinuous varia- 

 tions of this true matter, not of a mechanical nature 

 but of what he calls electrical strains, is to me less 

 substantial than extent or space; for, as difficult as it 

 may be, I can form some idea of space and I can com- 

 municate this idea to others, but I can make no mental 

 picture of an electrical strain in a non-mechanical 

 plenum; and such a strain certainly does not impress 

 me as being matter as I know it. I shall now form 

 these ideas into a chain : space is substance ; matter is 

 a variation or strain in substance; a strain is an elec- 

 tric charge ; an electric charge is matter ; matter is sub- 

 stance; therefore an electric charge and matter are 

 both space, unless I can be persuaded that a variation of 

 an entity can change its essence, which is absurd. This 



