THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 225 



living particles it contained, as well as the lifeless ones. But 

 for this a microscope would have been needed, and a microscope 

 is a most mischievous instrument. Besides which, it seemed clear 

 that the philosophy of dust could be discovered only by the 

 aid of physical and chemical investigation. The microscope, it was 

 suggested, was quite useless here, for had not glass a distinct 

 structure which the microscope had entirely failed to discover. 

 How, therefore, could that unfortunate instrument be of the 

 slightest use in the investigation of dust? The microscope was 

 very properly condemned by physical authority, and microscopic 

 observers were called names not calculated to gain for them the 

 respect of unscientific people.* But great was the applause which 

 followed, and the superiority of physical investigation over micros- 

 copic observation for the elucidation of dust was admitted. 



The elevation of one branch of scientific investigation at the ex- 

 pense of another, would not have been so successfully achieved if 

 the public had been better informed. The authority who disparages 

 one mode of scientific enquiry, in order to gain an increased share 

 of approbation for the particular method which he pursues, 

 though he may gain applause for his prowess, will not raise 

 himself in the estimation of well-informed persons, and as time 

 goes on, his apparent cleverness will provoke more than disap- 

 pointment. In a battle of science, physics would no doubt 

 dominate, for is it not acquiring mighty force by variation and 

 selection ? When it shall have gained the dominion it covets, it 

 will be able to proclaim its admirable fitness for solitary survival, 

 to the inanimate waste over which it will reign supreme. 



Is it not time that we who study the phenomena of the minute, 

 should explain to the people what we have seen. It is only by 

 the aid of our miscroscope work that man can learn the structure 

 of his body or form a correct notion of the wonderful actions 

 going on in the atom worlds of which it is constituted ? Many 

 have, perhaps, been so deeply interested in the pursuit of micro- 

 scopic labours that they have hardly cared to force themselves and 



* "In the 'Pi-efatory Letter' to his ' Lay Sermons,' Mr. Huxley speaks of 

 ' Microscopists, ignorant alike of Philosophy and Biology.' With reference to 

 one conspicuous member of this class, a doctor of medicine, lately professor in a 

 London College, famous for its orthodoxy, both Mr. Huxley and myself have long 

 practised, and shall, I trust, continue to practise, the tolerance recommended 

 above !" " Let us tolerate those, and they are many, who foolishly try to support 

 or oppose the evolution hypothesis !" The " Scientific (!) Use of the Imagination," 

 by John Tyndall, LL.D., F.B.S., page 49. 1870. 



