SCIENCE IS IGNORANT.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 114, 19 June 1914, Page 10

SCIENCE IS IGNORANT.

SIR OLIVER LODGE'S OPINION.

"Science is an affair of yesterday,'' is the epigrammatic summary by • Sir Oliver Lodge of all that the t minds of to : day have achieved on the outer fringe of The Mystery. • Sir Oliver spoke to the City Temple Literary Society, says the v London *' Evening Standard," and succeeded easily in showing how little is known and how much is hinted at| far" beyond, by our crumbs of knowledge. . "The action between mind and brain 'cell.is absolutely unknown to us.'at present, " proceeded Sir Oliver. "There it a gulf there, a bridge, an interlocking of two apparently, different forms of activity.- There is connection between the. mental and" the material. How that is managed we do not know, but we are surrounded by puzzles, and when we begin'to look into tilings we find ignorance ; —ignorance —ignorance! Not- hopeless ignorance, but deep-seated ignorance, which it will, take many centuries of scientific, groping even partially to solve. .

Sometimse we think we have done wonders, and have got a long way on towards understanding. Well, as compared with previous centuries, -we have, but there is an infinitude beyond .of which 'we at-present have but a partial conception. The ether we cannot solve."

Sir Oliver explained how he had tried to move ether l>y a delicate optical arrangement. •He demonstrated that there was no friction between matter and ether. The earth travelled through ether without any ! friction whatever. Then, was there any connection between matter and ether? The connection was of the electrical kind. Sir Oliver referred to gravitation as a puzzle. • People thought Isaac Newton discovered gravitation, but Newton himself knew better. .It was.not explained. ~«*»* '' It is perhaps the next big discovery that remains to be made in physics,", proceeded: Sir Oliver. "Many are working at it. The uniting, welding force in the material world is the continuous medium which unites all the scattered particles of matter. The whole uuiverse is linked up together by this continuous, all-penetrating, uniform, cohesive medium. - ■

"Could you imagine a limit beyond •which there is I cannot. It seeins to me to go on and on without end. Can.you imagine anything-like that? I cannot. Yet one or the other must be true—either there must be a boundary, or there must not. They are both inconceivable, yet one is true. v "This world must have had an infinite past, and an kifinite past must be going to.have an infinite future. -The past has gone through great labour, great preparation, and has now reached for the moment this climax: <;lt has produced us.' The future does depend to some extent upon our activities; upon our connections. -We are a conscious part of a scheme."