326 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



be obvious that even the problems of reproduction and heredity, 

 if not those of immunity, may be dealt with from some such 

 point of view as that I have ventured to state. 



The assertion has been made ! recently that the scientific 

 world "is beginning on all sides to admit the necessity for 

 postulating the co-operation of some ' outside ' factor. Lodge 

 in England, Bergson in France and Driesch in Germany are the 

 most conspicuous apostles of the new movement." 



This is but one of the many such statements made of late. 

 An apostle after all is but a messenger and the character of a 

 message depends a good deal on the instruction the messenger 

 has received, though imagination may contribute a good deal 

 to its ultimate adornment. The messages delivered to the 

 public on such a subject are apt to be somewhat imaginary. 

 It is clear that they cannot be even an approximation to truth, 

 when no notice is taken by those who convey them of the 

 results achieved by the toiling workers in the distant adits of 

 the mine of science. Philosophers must go to school and 

 study in the purlieus of experimental science, if they desire to 

 speak with authority on these matters. 



Here again I am served by the old Greek cynic — " The 

 beginning of philosophy, at least with those who lay hold of it 

 as they ought, is the consciousness of their own feebleness and 

 incapacity in respect of necessary things." Such sayings make 

 us wonder at the lack of appreciation displayed by the Sage of 

 Chelsea in making Sartor say : " The ' Enchiridion of Epictetus' 

 I had ever with me, often as my sole companion, and regret to 

 mention that the nourishment it yielded was trifling." But he 

 too was a philosopher. 



After telling us that the cell is now defined as a vital unit 

 consisting of an individual mass of the living substance proto- 

 plasm containing at least one nucleus ; and that the proto- 

 plasm of an ordinary cell is differentiated into two distinct 

 components — the cytoplasm or body-plasm and the nucleus — 

 Prof. Minchin raises the question whether the cytoplasm or the 

 nucleus is to be regarded as the more primitive. He cannot 

 conceive, he says, that the earliest living creature could have 

 come into existence as a complex cell, with nucleus and cyto- 

 plasm distinct and separate ; and he is forced to believe that 



1 " Involution " : by Lord Ernest Hamilton. 



