Dr. Jeans and the ‘Disease’ of Life

Abstract

MR. ROBINSON'S letter reveals a misapprehension which might be shared by others, and should at once be removed. The note in question was not an independent report of Dr. Jeans's article. It was a comment on the article, published in the same issue of NATURE, and intended to be read in conjunction therewith. Its purpose was to direct attention to the Supplement and to indicate its general tendency. It was obviously impossible and undesirable to mention all Dr. Jeans's suggestions about life. Those suggestions, indeed, were entirely secondary to the main thesis, which was that “the primary physical process of the universe is the conversion of matter into radiation”. The possible view of life referred to in the note was selected because it threw the main thesis into the strongest relief. The selection carried no implication whatever that the view was the one favoured by Dr. Jeans or by modern scientific thought. As Mr. Robinson says: “readers can turn to the original and judge for themselves”. In case Mr. Robinson imagines that there has been an insidious attempt to propagate materialism in the guise of science, let me say that personally I hold the idealistic view—so strongly, indeed, as to be able to contemplate the alternative with equanimity.