226 the president's address. 



their work before the public ; but surely it would be well if the 

 public were better informed concerning the structure of their own 

 bodies, and from microscopists themselves, for then people might 

 see and judge whether or not they were the wretched force-made 

 instruments the physicists hold them to be. For years past our 

 physical masters have been arrogant, rather positive, and very 

 prophetic as to what was about to be discovered in the future, but 

 their arrogance has not gained for them confidence, and is effecting 

 its own cure ; their positivism is discovered to be but a very 

 monstrous nihilism in disguise, and their prophetic spirit is dying 

 out in disaj3pointment and distrust. 



It is wonderful what haphazard assertions are made in 

 these days concerning the likeness or identity of dissimilar 

 things. Observers, who should test these assertions, and ascertain 

 whether they are accurate or not, permit them to pass without 

 comment, and the public accepts them as literally true. We are 

 told, for example, by Mr. Darwin that it is " scarcely possible to 

 exaggerate the close correspondence in general structure, in the 

 minute structure of the tissues between man and the higher 

 animals, especially the anthropomorphous apes." But Mr. Darwin 

 does not tell us that he or anyone else has made the observations 

 upon which the statement is founded. A careful comparison 

 of the tissues of man with the corresponding tissues of apes in 

 minute structure is much to be desired, but it has never been made, 

 and it is quite premature to speak of the supposed u close corres- 

 pondence " as if it had been proved to exist. As to the close cor- 

 respondence in chemical composition, asserted to exist between 

 man and apes, the same remarks may be made. Such correspond- 

 ence has yet to be shown. 



Again, arguments concerning the action of the nervous system 

 have been based upon the assumption of the existence of a peculiar 

 colloid isomerically transformed with ease, but the peculiar colloid 

 and its isomeric transformations have yet to be rendered evident 

 to the senses. And who has not heard of the likeness between 

 the embryo of man and the embryo of the dog, and of the grand 

 conjectures founded upon the likeness existing at a certain 

 period of development ? But what if the embryos be compared 

 at a still earlier period of existence ? The likeness will in that 

 case be found to be so very great that one embryo could not be 

 distinguished from the other. Surely a philosopher who pondered 



