I HI: r \iuntK88. 



chimeras, which astound ;ill thinking mm, it did not 

 r t> m.- to claim tin- public tolerance 



fr an hour ami a half, for the statement of more i, 



i -Yiewi tnoi laooe with tin- \erities 



which science lias brought to light, anl which many 

 souls would, I thought, wel.-omc with gratification ami 

 relief. 



P.ut to come to closer <iuarters. The expression to 

 which the most violent exception has been taken is thi>: 



.mloning all disgui-c, tin ion I feel bound to 



make before you is, that I prolong the vision backward 

 across the boundary of the experimental evidence, and 

 discern in that Matter which we, in our ignorance, and 

 notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, 

 have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and 

 potency of every form and quality of life." To call it a 

 "chorus of dissent," as my Catholic critic does, is a mild 

 way of describing the storm of opprobrium with which 

 this statement has been assailed. hut the first 1 

 passion being past, I hope I may again ask my opponents 

 to consent to reason. First of all, I am blamed for cross- 

 ing the boundary of the experimental evidence. This. I 

 reply, is the habitual action of the scientific mind at least 

 of that portion of it which applies itself to physical inves- 

 tigation. Our theories of light, heat, magnetism, and 



icity, all imply the crossing of this boundary. My 

 paper on'tbc " Scientific Use of the Imagination," and my 

 Lee tu res on Light," illustrate this point in the an 

 manner; and in the article entitled Matter and Force" 

 in the present volume I have sought, incidentally, to make 



. that in physics the experiential incessantly leads 

 to the ultra-experiential; that out of experience there 

 always grows something finer than mere experience, and 

 that in their dilTeivnt powers of ideal extension consists, 

 for the most part, the difference between the great and the 



ere inv. The kingdom of science, then, 



comcth not by <' \perimentalone, but is 



completed by fixing the roots of observation and c\p -rim. -nt 

 in a region inaccessible to both, and ii: d< -aling with 

 we are furred to fall back upon the picturing p 

 mind. 



Passing the bom -xperience. therefore, does not, 



in the abstract, constitute a surtieieiit ground for cci 



