Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/293



HE nature of matter has been regarded by philosophers from many points of view, but it is not from any philosophic standpoint that I presume in this university to ask you to consider the subject under my guidance. It is because new views as to the structure and properties of what used to be called the ultimate atom are now being born, and because these views, whether they succeed in ultimately establishing themselves in every detail or not, are of surpassing interest, that I have chosen this very recently deciphered chapter of science as the subject-matter for the lecture—the Romanes lecture—to be given this year in remembrance of a man whom I knew as a friend, and whose mind, if he had been alive to-day, would have been widely open to these most modern developments of physical science. Nor would the admittedly speculative character of some of the hypotheses now being thrown out have deterred him from hearing about them with the keenest interest.

If I may venture to say so, it is the more philosophical side of physics which has always seemed to me most suitable for study in this university; and although I disclaim any competence for philosophic treatment in the technical sense, yet I doubt not that the new views, in so far as they turn out to be true views, will have a bearing on the theory of matter in all future writings on philosophy; besides exercising a profound effect on the pure sciences of physics and chemistry, and perhaps having some influence on certain aspects of biology also.