Abstract
SIR OLIVER LODGE on March 17 gave the oration at the thirty-sixth Foundation Week at University College, London. It was well received at its delivery, and is well worth reading in its published form (University of London Press, 1s. net). Sir Oliver is now so generally accepted as the best exponent of a tolerant, humane, and comprehensive way of regarding science that when he speaks, as he did, on “Changes in Scientific Outlook”, he might expect an attentive audience. The address was eloquent, impressive, and highly stimulating to thought, but it scarcely covered the matter which the title would lead one to expect. There is little or nothing in it of the latest developments in science, the extension of specialisation, the connexions of astrophysics with laboratory work, the exploration of the border-line problems between animate and inanimate. Sir Oliver practically confined himself to the one issue which in his view outweighs in ultimate importance all the others, and the address might well be called A Plea for the Spiritual in the Realm of Science”. The spiritual in this case is not to be identified with the ‘spiritual’ which Sir Oliver has so closely and patiently pursued in the purely human sphere. He has, as always, a word on this topic, and pleads for the open mind, a plea which every fair-minded person will be willing to support. But he goes on to speak and it is the burden of his speech of the need of admitting a spiritual explanation of the phenomena of the world as a whole.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Changes in Scientific Outlook. Nature 130, 196–197 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130196c0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130196c0