THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 223 



incapable alike of working in the spirit in which he works, or of 

 comprehending the bearing of the facts he demonstrates, some 

 physical authorities have lately tried to set aside the truths already 

 established, have spoken contemptuously of microscope work and 

 workers, and have endeavoured to persuade the public that other 

 kinds of investigation are superior to microscopic enquiry, and may 

 be advantageously substituted for it ; but, as might have been an- 

 ticipated, disaster has resulted from these misdirected efforts. If 

 certain brethren of the scientific workshop speak of themselves as 

 strong and of the rest as weak, and then endeavour to oust the latter, 

 it is not difficult to foresee the result ; real work will be sus- 

 pended, workmen discouraged, and confusion will reign supreme. 

 Instead of the strongest party gaining for themselves, as they 

 hoped, all the credit due for work done partly by them and partly 

 by their fellow workmen, the work of all is mistrusted and set 

 aside until it can be more thoroughly tested and examined, and 

 the bad work distinguished and separated from the work that is 

 good. In the meantime many labourers remain idle, and out of 

 work, and it is long before peace and harmony are restored. 



The attack recently made, by physical force, upon our active, 

 living, growing department of the scientific workshop, was as 

 unjustifiable as it was unprovoked, and it was inaugurated in 

 misconception. Physical force, we were told, would perform and 

 account for everything, and supersede entirely the necessity 

 for careful and very minute enquiry into the structure and 

 changes of living things. It was to save us trouble, and it was 

 to open a royal road to knowledge. Unfortunately, we listened 

 too readily to the voice of the charmer, and bitterly have we 

 suffered thereby. He has wasted our time, blinded us with the dust 

 he has disturbed, and all he has shown us is that he was utterly un- 

 acquainted with the very elements of our work. He proceeds with 

 great confidence in his physical powers to examine the dust he 

 has succeeded in raising, and begins by declaring that nothing was 

 known concerning the nature of dust before the subject was illu- 

 mined by the light of his own particular physical investigation. 

 Thus it happened that dust became of the greatest importance in a 

 physical sense, and for many months past the great dust question 

 has taken the very first rank among subjects of serious considera- 

 tion, and has even on some occasions excited as much interest as 

 political conversation formerly did in advanced intellectual society. 



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