SIR OLIVER LODGE'S REFLECTIONS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 17154, 4 December 1917, Page 4

SIR OLIVER LODGE'S REFLECTIONS.

ON LIFE, AND OTHER THINGS

In an address r.t the Hamstead Garden Suburb Institute Sir Oliver Lodge uttered the following reflections : — There are more atoms in a thimbleful of water than there are thimbl^fuls of water in 'he Atlantic.

The universe has been in labour for a hundred millions years and has produced —us! We are a remarkable product and Aye are behaving at the present moment in a remarkable maimt«.

I don't know what life is, but it must be worth while. Whence it comes we know not, nor whither it goes, but while we live it we build honeycombs and birds' nests and Forth bridges, ana cathedrals, so it must be a good thing. Ether is probably more solid and substantial than matter, which is porous.

If you lived on Venus you wouldn't see the stars at all.

The more a youth is inclined to be scientific the more he should be taught classics and literature.

I had no science teaching myself. Judging from what I heard of the '•e----sivlts of it, I think it would have set me against it.

Everything in the "way of plant life strives to associate itself with man. Stick a twig in the earth and it will become a shrub. It is wonderful how life gets hold of the ruins we have made. Roses, weeds, lichens and mosses cover them all up as if they were waiting their opportunity to come into existence to get into touch with man and live on this planet. Astronomers—some of them—claim to have seen the planet Vulcan in transit across .the sun. It was clever of Le Verrier not only to discover the alleged planet, but to find out its name at the same time. As a matter of fact it doesn't exist.

If people came to adult age without apprehension of what is going on around them they are missing their birthright. The omnipresence of the unseen is one of the great revelations of science.