150 TWO NEW WORLDS 



endeavouring to reduce matter to some unintel- 

 ligible turbulence in an inconceivable ether. He 

 is on a fool's errand. "That way madness lies." 

 It is sheer waste of time to look for an ultimate 

 particle, or for a continuous fluid of certain density 

 or elasticity. We can never arrive at anything 

 ultimate by making our unit small. There will 

 always be something a million times smaller, in- 

 finitely smaller. Why not, then, take the bull by 

 the horns and recognise that dimensions are only 

 relative, that our faculties have a limited range, 

 and that, however far we extend that range on a 

 larger or smaller scale, the same problems are 

 presented to us ? Let us not bury these problems 

 out of sight in the Infinitesimal. No material inter- 

 pretation of the universe will ever explain anything. 

 The elementary particle, the elementary position or 

 motion, will be the greatest of all puzzles. Real pro- 

 gress must be sought for in quite another direction. 



Let us by all means reduce the number of laws 

 to the minimum. Let us, if we can, explain gravi- 

 tation by ether motion; but if we fail, if we have 

 to admit universal gravitation as an ultimate and 

 irreducible reality, where is the loss ? We must 

 have some fundamental assumptions, incapable of 

 further explanation, and none are likely to be much 

 simpler than Newton's law. The ether might also 

 be taken for granted, and without any further 

 speculations as to its constitution, we may assume 



