no Life and Matter [chap.vi. 



these ethereal ripples which a physicist 

 understands by the term "light." It is 

 quite conceivable that a race of blind 

 physicists would be able to devise experi- 

 mental means whereby they could make 

 experiments on what to us is luminous 

 radiation, just as we now make experiments 

 on electric waves, for which we have no 

 sense organ. It would be absurd for a 

 psychologist to inform them that light did 

 not exist because sight did not. The term 

 might have to be reconsidered and redefined ; 

 indeed, most likely a polysyllabic term would 

 be employed, as is unfortunately usual when 

 a thing of which the race in general has 

 no intimate knowledge requires nomen- 

 clature. But the thing would be there, 

 though its mode of manifestation would be 

 different ; a term like " vision " might still 

 be employed, to signify our mode of per- 

 ceiving and experiencing the agency which 

 now manifests itself to us through our eyes ; 

 and plants might grow by the aid of that 

 agency just as they do now. 



