The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-09-11
5 solsssa'ssssa,a lodge Argues on
20 continuity" as Great
Factor in Nature
ARBITRARY WORDS
NOT SUFFICIENT
Scientists Gibbet Themselves as
Ludicrous Pedants by Trying TO
Reduce Everything to Physics
and Chemistry

birmingham, England, September 10.
presidential address before the British
association has seldom been awaited with
such eagerness on the part of the gen
eral public as that delivered tonight by
Sir oliver Joseph Lodge. The leading
scientists of the world were in the audi
ence, including Mime Curie, the CO.
oiscoverer with her late husband, 5f
radium. and - other great foreign
savants.
Usually such addresses are too scien-
tifo and abstruse to appeal to popular
taste, But it was known that Sir Oliver
Lodge was to deal with the mystery OF
after life and the question of persistence
of personality after death. and In avowins
his belief in such after life, the speaker
went further than any scientist had yet
gone towards answering a question 50
profoundly interesting to the mass u
mankind
The address was listened TO with I'M
pressive silence which was broken only
by the murmur of half suppressed laugh
ter or little outbursts of applause.
His subject was CONTINUITY and sum
married. in his own words Sir Oliver 5
argument was:
"A marked feature of the present scien-
tific era is the discovery of, and interest
in, various kind of atomism, so that con-
tiluity seems in danger of being lost
sight of.
Another tendency is toward compre-
hersive negative generalizations from a
limited point of view.
"Another is to take refuge in rather
vague forms of statement and to shrink
from closer examination of the puzzling
and the obscure.
Another is to deny the existence of
anything which makes no appeal to or
gans of sense and no ready response to
laboratory experiment" ~
Belief in Ultimate Continuity
Against these tendencies the author con-
tends. He urges a belief in ultimate con-
tinulty as essential to science, he re-
CARDS scientific concentration as an in
adequate basis for philosophic generaliza-
ton. he believes that obscure phenomena
may be expressed simply If properly
faced. and he points out that the nom
appearance of anything perfectly uniform
end omnipresent is only what should be
expected and is no argument against its
real, substantial existence.
In conclusion Sir Oliver touched upon
the question of life after death. He de-
clared his conviction that occurrences
regarded so occult can be examined and
reduced to order by the methods of science
carefully and persistently applied. and
that already the facts so examined have
convinced me that memory and affection
are not limited to that association with
n after by which alone they can mani
fest themselves here and now and that
personality persists beyond bodily death.
Sir Oliver further declared the ',evi-
dence to my mind goes to prove that dis
carnate Intelligence, under certain condi-
tions. may entfact with us on the ma
terial side" and 'that we may hope to
attain some understanding OF the nature
of a larger, perhaps ethereal, existence
and of the conditions regulating inter-
course across the chasm.''
Rapid Progress Is Characteristic
In his remarks leading up to these dec
larations, Sir Oliver said:
eliminating from cur purview, as is al
waves in 1888, the discovery of X-rays in
activity and limiting ourselves to a scru-
tiny on the side of pure science alone
let us ask what, in the main, is the
characteristic of the promising. though
pertubing period in which we live Diff
ferent persons would give different an
swers, but the answer | venture to give
is-rapid progress, combined with funda-
mental scepticism.
with the realization of predicted ether
waves In 1885, the discovery of X-rays in
1895. spontaneous radio-activity In 1896.
and the isolation of the clectron in 1898,
expectation of further achievement be-
came vivid, and novelties, experimental.
theoretical and spec ulative, have been
showered upon us ever since this century
began. That is why | speak of rapid
progress
Not Theological Sceptlcism
Sir Oliver explained by fundamental
scepticism that he did not mean the well
worn and almost antique theme of theu-
logical scepticis,n. That controversy
was practically in allowance just now.
In physiology the conflict ranges round
vitalism,' he said. I'm chemistry the de-
bate concerns atomic structure In BIZ
ology the dispute is on the laws of IL
heritance. In economic and political
science. or sociology what is there that
Is not under discussion? m the vast
group of mathenla tica1 and physical
sciences, present day criticism concerns
what, If had to express it in one word.
should call continuity
Philosophers have begun to question
some of the larger generaizations OF con-
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