Continuity 69 



unless they have some link or bond with 

 the material they must always be physic- 

 ally beyond our ken. We may therefore 

 for practical purposes legitimately treat 

 them as non-existent until such link 

 is discovered, but we should not dog- 

 matise about them. True agnosticism 

 is legitimate, but not the dogmatic and 

 positive and gnostic variety. 



For I hold that Science is incompetent 

 to make comprehensive denials, even 

 about the Ether, and that it goes wrong 

 when it makes the attempt. Science 

 should not deal in negations: it is strong 

 in affirmations, but nothing based on 

 abstraction ought to presume to deny 

 outside its own region. It often happens 

 that things abstracted from and ignored 

 by one branch of science may be taken 

 into consideration by another: 



Thus, Chemists ignore the Ether. 



Mathematicians may ignore experi- 

 mental difficulties. 



Physicists ignore and exclude live 

 things. 



