Quote#Time
Every great revelation is likely to have been foreshadowed in more or…
Quote byOliver Lodge · 1851–1940
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Raymond, or Life and Death (1916), Raymond, p. 382.
English (original)
Every great revelation is likely to have been foreshadowed in more or less imperfect forms, so as to prepare our minds and make ready the way for complete perception hereafter. It is probable that the human race is quite incompetent to receive a really great idea the first time it is offered.
— Oliver Lodge
More from Oliver Lodge
The waves of light are not anything mechanical or material, but are something electrical and magnetic—they are, in fact, electrical disturbances periodic in space and time, and travelling with a known and tremendous speed through the ether …
A body can only act immediately on what it is in contact with; it must be by the action of contiguous particles—that is, practically, through a continuous medium, that force can be transmitted across space.
What properties are essential to a medium capable of transmitting wave motion? Roughly, we may say two: elasticity and inertia.
The oldest and best known function for an ether is the conveyance of light, and hence the name "luminiferous" was applied to it, though at the present day many functions are known, and more will almost certainly be discovered.
Motion and force are our primary objects of experience and consciousness; and in terms of them all other less familiar occurrences may conceivably be studied and grasped.
All potential energy exists in the ether. It may vibrate, and it may rotate, but as regards locomotion it is stationary—the most stationary body we know: absolutely stationary, so to speak; our standard of rest.