Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1913-09-21
By Professor Sir Oliver Lodge, F. r. S.. D. Sc,
President British Association for the of Scenc

worker for a formula wherewith to interpret
the universe
So If ever in their enthusiasm scientific
workers go too far and say that the things they
exclude from study have no existence in the
universe, we must appeal against them to di-
rect experience. We ourselves are alive we
possess life and mind and consciousness, we
have hrst-hand experience OF these things
quite apart from laboratory experiments.
They belong to the common knowledge of the
race. Births deaths and marriages are not
affairs Of the biologist, but of humanity, they
went on before a single one of them was I'M
derstOOd, before a vestige Of science existed.
We ourselves are the laboratory in which men
Of science, psychologists and others, make ex-
periments. They can formulate our processes
OF digestion, and the material concomitants of
willing, OF sensation, of thinking; but the hid.
den guiding entities they do not touch.
SO, also, II any philosopher tells you that you
do not exist or that the external world does
not G. st, or that you are an automaton without
free Will, that all your actions are determined
by outside causes and that you are not re-
sponsible-Or that a body cannot move out OF
its place, or that Achilles cannot catch a tor.
tCise thea In all those cases appeal must be
made to twelve average men, unsophisticated
by special studies. There is always danger
Of error in Interpreting experience or in draw
irg differences from it; but in a matter of bare
fact, based on our own firsthand experience.
We are able to give a verdict. We may be
Stars may look to us like bright specks in a
dome, but the fact that We see them admits OF
no doubt So, also, consciousness and will are
realities OF which directly aware Just
directly as we are of motion and force, Just
as clearly as we apprehend the philosophizing
utterances of an agnostic The process of seeing
the plain man does not understand; he does not
recognize that II is method Of ethereal teeg-
raphy; Re knows nothing Of the ether and its
ripples nor of the retina and It's rods and
cones, nor of nerve and brain processes but
ne sees and he hears and he touches, and he
Wills and he thinks and is conscious. This is
not an appeal to the mob as against the phil.
osopher, II is an appeal to the experience of UNI
told ages as against the studies of a generation.
How consciousness became associated with
matter, how life eXerts guidance over chem
ical and physical forces, how mechanical mo-
tons are translated into sensatons-all these
things are puzzing and demand long study.
But the fact that these things are so admits of
no doubt, and difficulty of explanation is no
argument against them. The blind man re-
stored to sight had no opinion as to how he
was healed, nor could he vouch for the moral
character of the healer, but he plainly knew
that whereas he was blind now he saw. About
that fact he was the best possible Judge. SO
1t is also with this main miracle that thou art
thou. With power on thine own act and on
The world.
But although life and mind may be excluded
from physiology they are not excluded from
science. OF course not. 1t is not reasonable to
say that things necessarily elude investigation
merely because do not knock against them
Yet the mistake is sometimes made. The ether
beginning to say that ii does not exist Mind
Is occasionally put into the same predicament
Life Is not detected in the laboratory save in
Its physical and chemical manifestations but
we may have to admit that it guides processes
nevertheless. 1t may be called a catalytc
agent.