SIR J. ARTHUR THOMSON 165 



not forgetting, towards the lower end of the scale, the 

 mysterious cosmic rays discovered by Mlllikan. Now 

 all these are of the same nature; they are electro- 

 magnetic vibrations, all travelling In space with the 

 same velocity of 186,300 miles per second. This 

 means not only a remarkable unification of the radiant 

 energies; It means that the powers of the world have 

 become more Intelligible by being ranked In a series; 

 and It means, as we all know, a great Increase In man's 

 practical mastery or control. 



Science and Beyond Science 



Science alms at an analytic and genetic description 

 of the world and of all that goes on there. In so far 

 as scientific methods can be applied. It Is not the only 

 kind of knowledge; It Is partial and abstract, for It 

 deliberately restricts Itself to verifiable factors that 

 can be measured or registered, observed again and 

 again, and even experimented with. We all know our 

 friends more or less well, and our parents, in most 

 cases, very well, but real as this knowledge is, it is not 

 In the main scientific. It is reached by personal ex- 

 perience and mainly along the pathway of feeling. It 

 Is reliable knowledge, but it has not that impersonality 

 that is characteristic of science. Thus there are very 

 different appreciations of the same person, while there 

 is only one scientific account of the composition of a 

 chemical substance, and only one scientific account of 

 the structure of the human heart. The more marked 

 unanimity or Impersonality of well-established exact 

 science is mainly due to the fact that chemistry and 

 physics have not to deal with individualities, which 



