THE SEVEN FOLLIES OF SCIENCE 5 



of matter can ever lessen the eagerness with which carbon 

 and oxygen combine together. Every little while we 

 hear of some discovery that is going to upset all our pre- 

 conceived notions and entirely change those laws which 

 long experience has proved to be invariable, but in 

 every case these alleged discoveries have turned out to 

 be fallacies. For example, the wonderful properties of 

 radium have led some enthusiasts to adopt the idea 

 that many of our old notions about the conservation of 

 energy must be abandoned, but when all the facts are 

 carefully examined it is found that there is no rational 

 basis for such views. Upon this point Sir Oliver Lodge 

 says : 



" There is absolutely no ground for the popular and gra- 

 tuitous surmise that radium emits energy without loss or 

 waste of any kind, and that it is competent to go on for- 

 ever. The idea, at one time irresponsibly mooted, that it 

 contradicted the principle of the conservation of energy, 

 and was troubling physicists with the idea that they must 

 overhaul their theories a thing which they ought always 

 to be delighted to do on good evidence this idea was a 

 gratuitous absurdity, and never had the slightest founda- 

 tion. It is reasonable to suppose, however, that radium 

 and the other like substances are drawing upon their own 

 stores of internal atomic energy, and thereby gradually dis- 

 integrating and falling into other and ultimately more stable 

 forms of matter." 



One would naturally suppose that the extensive diffusion 

 of sound scientific knowledge which has taken place during 

 the century just past, would have placed these problems 

 amongst the lumber of past ages ; but it seems that some 

 of them, particularly the squaring of the circle and per- 

 petual motion, still occupy considerable space in the atten- 

 tion of the world, and even the futile chase after the 



