Oliver Joseph Lodge, 1851 1940
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must be subject to critical examination by competent authorities; and he always welcomed any such aids to the fractional distillation o f the spirit o f truth from material which he believed contained the essence o f it. After many years o f study and experiment, he deemed that he had ascertained evidence o f the reality o f a realm beyond physics and endeavoured to understand its human mean ing. In his psychical research work, he followed the same method o f critical enquiry and cautious conclusion as that upon which all scientific investigation must be based. It follows that the records obtained by him in the psychical field must be given the same consideration as those o f observed results o f other experiments. This is the attitude taken by every scientific society towards the account o f any original research presented to it by a responsible investigator. W ithout this confidence in faithful testimony, it would be impossible to build up a structure o f scientific knowledge. W hether experiments are well-designed and crucial, or whether interpretations o f them are convincing, is, however, a legitimate subject for criticism. Many psychical researchers are content to collect evidence o f unusual ultra-physical experiences o f all kinds with the view of sifting from it a few grains o f gold which will lead them to the lode they are seeking. Others are prospectors looking for promis ing sites upon which to sink their shafts. In each o f these groups the value o f the ore is assayed by the discoverers themselves and is given sterling significance as a medium o f exchange. A scientific explorer is, however, not satisfied in obtaining such rewards o f sustained effort: he wishes also to know the true nature o f the mineral and its relation to the earth’s structure. He has, therefore, to construct in his own mind an explanation or hypothesis which will account for the existence and origin o f the noble metal recovered by him. Lodge, like all men o f science, clearly distinguished between ascertained evidence and hypothesis to interpret its meaning. The accurate observations o f celestial bodies made in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia have survived many hypotheses con ceived then and later to explain them. Such hypotheses change OLIVER JOSEPH LODGE 5 6 9 570 OBITUARY NOTICES w ith the advance o f scientific knowledge: they are verified or discarded according to their capacity to account for facts o f observation. The Ptolemaic and other astronomical systems thus gave place to the Copernican theory o f celestial movements. Hypotheses which relate to causes o f phenomena belong to a different category. It is impossible, for example, to establish by observation how the solar system came into existence or what was the origin o f life. A hypothesis may, however, be serviceable to science, even though it is not directly verifiable, because it correlates phenomena and suggests directions o f further enquiry. The whole o f ultra-microscopic physics is based upon hypothetical considerations which are unverifiable because the ultimate units and events cannot be directly observed, but only their effects or sense-impressions. Lodge was convinced that the phenomena he had observed in the meta-atomic field were sufficient to justify a hypothesis to correlate, if not to explain, them. He knew very well that other psychical researchers explained the same type o f observation in a different way, and realized that his hypothesis was not o f the nature o f an unchangeable creed but an explanation which m ight have to be revised or discarded in the light o f fuller knowledge. His view was that the evidence he had obtained justified the conception o f the hypothesis o f survival o f human personality after physical death and the reality o f communication w ith discarnate minds through sensitive living receivers. Another group o f psychical investigators would explain the revelations as having their origin in telepathy. W hich o f these hypotheses represents the nearer approach to truth must depend at present upon personal knowledge and judgm ent. All that can be said is that if mind exists apart from matter, the inevitable conclusion must be that reached by Lodge and now accepted by most authorities in the field o f psychical research. The spiritistic hypothesis was accepted by Lodge to account for a large number of, as it seemed to him, otherwise inexplicable facts o f observation and experiment. According to it, the human body is the transient centre o f activity o f an influence which
existed before, and continues after, organic life. W e are allr therefore, spirits operating on material bodies for a time, but our real existence does not depend upon our association w ith matter. The potential permanent part o f us is spirit, and it always operates upon the material through the ether. All our actions on matter are conducted through this entity and may be continued in the same sort o f way through etheric mechanism when the body has disappeared. In other words, human beings are immortal spirits in temporary association with matter. It was F. W . H. Myers who convinced Lodge that obscure psychical phenomena could be legitimately investigated by observation and experiment, and be regarded as part o f a suffici ently comprehensive scheme o f natural knowledge. In his psychical researches, Myers followed truly scientific methods in his ascertainment o f such knowledge by patient, systematic and dispassionate enquiry and cautious conclusion. Evidence o f this is afforded in his great work, Human Personality and its Survival oj
Myers’ researches and became gradually convinced o f the truth o f the hypothesis o f survival o f personality. After Myers’ death, Lodge firmly believed his friend com municated w ith him through psychical mediums. After Lodge’s youngest son, Raym ond, had been killed by shrapnel near Ypres, in September 1915, he learned through these channels that Myers had continued the friendship by practically adopting Raym ond. The evidence o f the survival o f their spirits and o f sensory reactions in the world beyond the grave, was described by Lodge in his book entitled Raymond: or Life and Death. With
the two most important contributions to the subject. In the field o f psychical research, Lodge did not expect to be able to construct ‘models’ o f the machinery o f the kind familiar to fellow physicists o f his generation. He testified to the reality o f certain super-material phenomena but held theories and hypotheses lightly, open to emendation, but holding always
572 OBITUARY NOTICES loyally to facts so far as they had been ascertained. He regarded much o f modern thought in physics as belonging to the same category. ‘The abstract method o f treatment at present in vogue’, he said, ‘probably represents a phase through which science has to go. It is being conducted through the temporary haze with great ability; but in time, I believe, it will emerge on the other side and become intelligible once more, with an added perception o f reality and a clearer conception o f the working. To that conception the ether belongs, and we shall then be better able to understand its nature and its relation w ith matter. The laws o f dynamics, however modified and extended, will still be true; the labour o f our scientific ancestors will not have been in vain. By that time it is probable that the scheme o f physics will be enlarged so as to embrace the behaviour o f living organisms, under the influence o f life and m ind.’ Full references to all Lodge’s writings and scientific papers from 1875 to 1935 are given in A Bibliography of Sir Oliver Lodge, by M r Theodore Besterman, published by the Oxford University Press in the latter year. The total number is 1156. The first was read before the Physical Society in 1875, and his last contribution to physics was on the Larmor-Lorentz transformation in the Philosophical Magazine in 1933, in collaboration with his brother, Professor Alfred Lodge. Lodge’s original communications to scientific societies are relatively few in the total number o f his writings, which represented his influence as a scientific educator rather than a creator o f new knowledge. Taking his published writings as a whole, and including papers, books and articles in a single group, nearly 600 are on electricity and radio, the ether, and other physical subjects. About 170 deal with philosophy, religion, and related subjects, 118 are biographical, prefaces and reviews, 145 on psychical research and spiritual survival, 64 are educational and academic, and 71 are miscellaneous writings. Lodge was elected a Fellow o f the Royal Society in 1887. He served on the Council o f the Society in 1893-94, and was awarded the R um ford Medal in 1898. He received the Albert Medal o f the Royal Society o f Arts in 1919 as a pioneer o f wireless
telegraphy, and the Faraday Medal o f the Institution o f Electrical Engineers in 1932. He was President o f the Mathematical and Physical Section o f the British Association in 1891, President o f the Physical Society in 1899-1900, President o f the Society for Psychical Research, 1901-4 and 1932, and President o f the British Association 1913-14. He was created a Knight Bachelor in 1902, and received the honorary degree o f D.Sc. o f the Universities o f Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds, Adelaide and Toronto, o f LL.D. o f St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and M.A. o f Birmingham. Lodge and Mary F. A. Marshall, who became his wife, met when they were children. They were born in the same year and, strangely enough, Mary Marshall’s mother, as well as Lodge’s father and mother, were all born in another same year. Mary had remarkable artistic gifts and became a student at the Slade School o f Fine Art, University College, in 1876. By undertaking much additional w ork in examining and teaching, he was able to earn a sufficient income to obtain her parents’ consent to their marriage, which took place in the following year. They had twelve children—six sons and six daughters—and celebrated their golden wedding in 1927. Two years later, Lady Lodge died at N orm anton House, Lake, near Salisbury, which she and Sir Oliver himself firmly believed was the home to which they were led by the spirit o f their son Raymond, to pass the remaining years o f their lives. It was there that he passed peacefully into the silence o f death on 22 August 1940—the anniversary o f their wedding-day—in the sure and certain hope o f meeting her spirit again in the ethereal world to the exploration o f which he devoted the main part o f his life. As scientist, administrator and author, Lodge influenced profoundly the life o f his day, but it was impossible to know him without realizing that the man was greater than his work, great though that work has been. His innate kindliness; his immense capacity for friendship; his eager youthfulness o f out look, preserved to extreme old age; his freedom from all those smallnesses which afflict so many o f the sons o f men; his OLIVER JOSEPH LODGE 573 574 OBITUARY NOTICES devotion to the pursuit o f knowledge and courage in maintain ing truth as revealed to him; these are qualities which those who have know n and loved him will not readily forget. Those o f us whose privilege it was to be present on that bright afternoon o f autumn when his remains were committed to earth felt that there was nothing for tears in the passing o f a figure so venerable and so venerated, nothing but a deep thankfulness that Oliver Lodge had been granted so long and so full a life o f unselfish service. W hen we undertook to prepare this notice, we wrote to Miss N orah Lodge, who was her father’s devoted companion, and she put us in communication with Miss Helen Alvey, Sir Oliver’s secretary for eighteen years, who was left in charge o f all his books and papers after his death. Miss Alvey has been o f the greatest help in providing us with copies o f most o f these publications; and we gratefully acknowledge our indebtedness to her for this material. Professor F. G. Baily, who was associated w ith Sir Oliver in the pioneer w ork on wireless telegraphy at University College, Liverpool, was good enough to send us several very im portant documents dealing with the early history o f the subject, particu larly in presenting the patent and legal aspects o f practical applications o f scientific investigation. Reference has already been made to the valuable bibliography o f Sir Oliver’s publications, prepared by M r T. Besterman, who was investigation officer o f the Society for Psychical Research, 1927-35. Another friend in this field o f enquiry, who was for many years a voluntary private secretary for Sir Oliver, was Mr J. Arthur Hill, o f Bradford. More than two thousand letters passed between Sir Oliver and his friend, and an annotated selection from them, by M r Hill, was published in 1932. This collection served as an appendix to Sir Oliver’s autobiography, published in the previous year under the title
R . A.
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