Annual Address by the President. 
15 
corpuscles shot out from a radium preparation at different velocities, 
and compared them with -the masses calculated on the basis that the 
whole of the mass was due to the electric charge. The agreement be- 
tween the observed and calculated values is so close that it leads 
Thomson to say: ‘These results support the view that the whole 
mass of these electrified particles arises from their charge. ’ 
“Then the corpuscles are to be looked upon as nothing but bits 
of electric charge. * * * It is this view which has led to the 
introduction of the term electron. * * * We have but to concede 
the logical sequence of this reasoning, all based on experimental 
evidence # # # and we have a universe of energy in which mat- 
ter has no necessary part .” 3 
Instead of conceiving matter as explained away, energy taking its 
place, I prefer to conceive of it as explained as being* energy and 
nothing else. This difference in terminology is unimportant, but 
might lead to confusion, if not pointed out. 
Facts as many and as significant as these, added to the reasoned 
conclusions of philosophy and psychology, would seem adequate to 
settle the controversy in favor of the dynamic theory of matter, were 
it not that we are dealing with an idol of the tribe, far more difficult 
to shatter than the golden calf. But more remains to be said. The 
validity of an hypothesis rests not only upon the facts that support 
it, but also upon the ability it gives us to explain puzzles in fields 
adjacent to its own. This makes it worth while to mention, though 
space will not allow explanations in detail, that a number of knots 
in physical theory that before had to be cut, or else left alone, can 
be handily untied by the dynamic hypothesis. Professor Bigelow is 
again my authority in the statements, that the theory explains the 
highly puzzling property of valence, and that “An electronic struc- 
ture of the atom furnishing a basis from which a plausible explana- 
tion of the refraction, polarization and rotation of the plane of 
polarized light may be logically derived .” 4 These explanations bulk 
large in the aggregate, and the exclusive ability of the dynamic theory 
to make them adds significantly to its credibility. 
As an alternative to the dynamic theory, thus substantially sup- 
ported, the conservatives have little to offer; indeed, in the last 
analysis, nothing but a word. The “matter” they refuse to identify 
with force shrinks down to John Locke’s “something I know not 
what,” by which a portion of the mass of bodies is to be accounted 
for. But Sir Oliver Lodge remarks, “It would be equally true to 
say unaccounted for. The mass which is explicable electrically is 
3 Pop. Sci, Mo., July, 1906. 
4 Loc. cit. 
