Sept., 1904.] 



KNOWLEDGE & SClENtlFIC NEWS. 



199 



tion was likely to make us in our unreflective moments regard 

 the solid earth on which we stood, or the organised bodies 

 with which our terrestrial fate was so closely bound up. as 

 consisting only of electric monads. Not less plain was it that 

 an almost equal divergence was to be formed between these 

 new theories and that modification of the "commonsense 

 view of matter " with wliich science h.ad lieen in the main 

 content to work. What was this modification of common 

 sense? It was roughly indicated by an oUl philosophic de- 

 duction drawn between what were called tlio " primary " 

 and "secondary " qu.alities of matter. The primary qualities. 

 such as shape and mass, were supposed to possess .m exis- 

 tence quite independent of the ob.server. The secondary 

 qualities, such as warmth and colour, were supposed to have 

 no such independent existence, being no more than the resul- 

 tants due to the action of the primary qualities on our organs 

 of sense-perception. .\nd there, no doubt, common sense and 

 theory parted company. Such was the theory on which 

 science had in the main proceeded. It was with matter thus 

 conceived that Newton experimented. To it he applied his 

 laws of motion; of it he predicted tmiversal gravitation. 



Norwasthe case greatly altered when science became.is much 

 preoccupied with the movements of molecules as it was with 

 that of planets. For molecules and atoms were at least pieces 

 of matter, possessed of those '• primary " qualities supposed to 

 be characteristic of all matter. Hut the electric theory carried 

 us into a new region .altogether. It was not content to account 

 for the secondary qualities by the primary; or the behaviour of 

 matter in atoms. It analysed matter whether molar or mole- 

 cular into something that was not matter at all. The 

 atom was now no more than the relatively vast theatre 

 in which the electric monads performed their evolutions ; 

 while the monads themselves were not regarded as 

 units of matter, but as units of electricity. So that matter 

 was not merely explained, but was explained away. 

 The point to which he desired to call attention was not to 

 be sought in the divergence between matter as thus conceived 

 and matter as the ordinary man supposed himself to know it, 

 but to the fact that the first of those two quite inconsistent 

 views was wholly based on the second. That was surely 

 something of a paradox. We claimed to found all our scientific 

 opinions on experience, and the experience of the universe 

 was our sense-perception of the universe ; yet the conclusions 

 which thus professed to be founded on experience were to all 

 appearance fundamentally opposed to it. Our knowledge of 

 reality was based on illusion. The very conceptions we used 

 in describing it to others, or in thinking of it ourselves, were 

 abstracted from anthropomorphite fancies which science for- 

 bade us to believe and Nature compelled us to employ. An 

 added emphasis was given to these reflections by a train of 

 thought that had long interested him, though he acknowledged 

 that it had never seemed to have interested anyone else. 



Sense-perceptions supplied the premises from which we drew 

 all our knowledge of the physical world. From them we learned 

 that there was a phj'sical world. But in order of causation 

 they were effects due to the constitution of our organs of sense. 

 What we saw depended not merely on what there was to be 

 seen, but on our eyes. What we heard depended not merely 

 on what there was to be heard, but on our ears. Now eyes 

 and ears had been evolved by the slow processes of natural 

 selection. .'\nd what was true of sense-perception was also 

 true of the intellectual powers which enabled us to erect on the 

 frail and narrow platform that sense-perception provided the 

 proud fabric of the sciences. Hut natural selection worked 

 only through utility. Our powers of sense-perception and 

 calculation were worked out ages before they were effectively 

 employed in searching out the secrets of physical reality. 

 Natural selection possessed no power of prevision. Our organs 

 of sense-perception were not given us for purposes of research, 

 nor was it to aid us in meting out the heavens or dividing the 

 atom; but our powers of calculation and analysis were evolved 

 from the rudimentary instinct of the animal. It was presum- 

 ably due to this that the beliefs of all mankind about the 

 material in which it dwells were not only imperfect, but 

 fundamentally wrong. It might seem singular to say that 

 down to, say, five years ago our race had without exception 

 lived and died in a world of illusion, and that its illusions were 

 not about things transcendental or divine, but about what it 

 said and handled, "the plain matters of fact," among which 

 commonsense daily moved with its most confident step and 



its most self-satisfied smile. And that was either because too 

 direct a vision of physical reality was a hindrance in the 

 struggle for existence or else because with so imperfect a material 

 as livuig tissue it was impos.sihle to arrive at right vision. 



If that conclusion were accepted its consequences ex- 

 tended to other organs of knowledge besides those of 

 perception. Not merely the senses but the intellect nuist be 

 judged by it. Considerations like these did luidoubtedly 

 suggest a certain mevitable incoherence in any general scheme 

 of thought which was built out of materials provided by natural 

 science alone. Extend the boundaries of knowledge as far .as 

 you pleased; draw the picture of the universe as you would; 

 reduce its infinite variety to the all-pervading ether; trace its 

 evolution to the point of the developnu:nt of the race and the 

 birth of the scientific handful of men who looked round on 

 the world, and, seeing, judged it and knew it for what it was— 

 perform all these things, and though you might indeed have 

 attained to science, in no wise would you have .-ittained to a self- 

 suHicing system of beliefs. One thing at le.ist would rem.iin 

 of which tiiis long-drawn suspense of causes and effects gave 

 no satisfying explanation; and that was knowledge itself. In 

 conclusion, the President asked the forgiveness of his audience 

 if he had overstepped the; ample boundaries within which the 

 searchers into Nature carried on their labours. His first desire 

 had been to rouse in those who, like himself, were no special- 

 ists in physics the same absorbing interest in what he felt to 

 be the most far-reaching speculation about the physical uni- 

 versi^ Ih.at h.id ever claimed support ; and if in doing so he 

 h.ad been tempted to show that the farther such speculations 

 were carried the more needful it was to complete our scheme 

 of thought by considerations not drawn from his mere exami- 

 nation of the'inanimatc world, even those who least agreed might 

 perhaps be prepared to pardon. 



Section A.— Mathematical a^nd Physical 

 Science. 



Professor Hokaci; Lamb, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., was born 

 in 1849; was Second Wrangler at Cambridge in 1872 ; Fellow 

 and Assistant Tutor of Trinity, afterwards Professor of 

 Mathematics at Adelaide 1876-1S85) and at Manchester. He 



Plioto. Ii!i I.ii/ii!i,lle, l.ta.\ 



PROF. HOKACli LAMB. 



