THE ETHER OF SPACE 1 



BY SIE OLIVER LODGE, D. Sc., F. R. S. 



THIRTY years ago Clerk Maxwell gave a remarkable lec- 

 ture on "Action at a Distance." Like most other natural 

 philosophers, he held that action at a distance across empty 

 space is impossible ; in other words, that matter cannot act 

 where it is not, but only where it is. The question * ' Where 

 is it?" is a further question that may demand attention 

 and require more than a superficial answer. For it can be 

 argued on the hydrodynamic or vortex theory of matter, 

 as well as on the electrical theory, that every atom of 

 matter has a universal, though nearly infinitesimal, prev- 

 alence, and extends everywhere, since there is no definite 

 sharp boundary or limiting periphery to the region dis- 

 turbed by its existence. The lines of force of an isolated 

 electric charge extend throughout illimitable space. And 

 though a charge of opposite sign will curve and concen- 

 trate them, yet it is possible to deal with both charges, by 

 the method of superposition, as if they each existed sepa- 

 rately without the other. In that case, therefore, however 

 far they reach, such nuclei clearly exert no "action at a 

 distance" in the technical sense. 



Some philosophers have reason to suppose that mind can 

 act directly on mind without intervening mechanism, and 

 sometimes that has been spoken of as genuine action at 

 a distance ; but, in the first place, no proper conception 

 or physical model can be made of such a process, nor is it 

 clear that space and distance have any particular mean- 

 ing in the region of psychology. The links between mind 



*A Friday evening discourse at the Royal Institution of Great 

 Britain on the 21st of February, 1908. 



Published in the North American Review for May, 1908. 



290 



