Annual Address by the President. 
7 
in fact dividing does not itself succeed, but merely leads indirectly 
towards success. “No wonder/’ says science, “we have not found 
out what matter is, for matter is very deceptive, and is not at all what 
it seems. In fact and in truth matter is made up, not of the large bulks 
we see, but of minute particles called molecules, in the neighborhood, 
for the simplest element, hydrogen, of one fifty millionth of an inch 
in diameter; and these minute molecules are in turn made up of very 
much smaller particles, atoms, two to a molecule in some elements, 
many more than two in others. And observe we can point out how 
the atoms are placed in the different elemental molecules, and see, 
how beautifully they shift their places in mystic dance, when a chem- 
ical reaction occurs. All that happens in the intercourse of matter 
is at bottom but the interplay of atoms and molecules. How wonder- 
ful is Nature, and how searching the discoveries of science/’ 
All of which I firmly believe to be true, and know to be pro- 
foundly useful truth. For has not science transformed the face of 
the earth in an incredibly short time, a little over fifty years? And 
yet how much nearer are we to knowing what matter is when we dis- 
cover how it is put together? If we ask what wood is, and are told 
that it is made up of tiny pieces of wood put together thus and so, 
information, important information, it may well be, is given. But 
plainly our question is not answered, it is merely pushed a step fur- 
ther back. No, in the equations of science, matter is represented by 
an x, whose value is seldom sought, though when everything is made 
of matter it would certainly seem worth while to discover that out 
of which everything is made. Possibly then, since common sense and 
science appear to be equally unable to say what matter is, the prob- 
lem is beyond the scope of human powers. Maybe, as Lord Dund- 
reery says, it is one of those things no fellow can tell. It may be 
so. But it is well to remember that the discoveries of science have 
nearly all been things that the fainthearted said no fellow could tell. 
Besides, as regards the problem of matter, no philisophic generation 
has ever been wholly agnostic, and the foremost members of the 
present and latest scientific generation are not agnostic. And more- 
over — a point of special significance — it is well to remind ourselves 
that philosophers and scientists, in spite of the difference of their 
points of view, and of their methods, seem rapidly to be approaching 
agreement as to the nature of matter. It should then repay us to 
hear what they have to say. 
Insisting, as we have seen, that sensations- — colors, sounds, tastes, 
and the rest, are not matter, or any part of matter, philosophers — 
at least those unconfused by Hume’s over-sophisticated attack on 
causes, taken so seriously by Kant — these philosophers, I say, main- 
