228 the president's address. 



sensitive. A word in opposition will sometimes produce the most 

 terrible results, but there is one word which causes the utmost 

 distress. You may talk of molecular pulsations, and vibrations, 

 and collocations, and differentrations and the like ; but if you once 

 make use of the term vitality or vital, you are lost for ever, and 

 become the subject of physical contempt or physical scorn, and 

 are regarded as a sort of scientific outcast, beyond the pale of 

 physical civilization, and unworthy of material sympathy. 



Nor is it very strange that in some very positive expressions 

 of opinion concerning the nature of life, the origin of living 

 beings, and the formation of species, the results of micros- 

 copic observation should be altogether ignored. Perhaps the facts 

 gleaned by the aid of magnifying glasses are not favourable to the 

 general doctrines which have been recently taught by physicists 

 who have faith in the evolution of living things from non-living 

 matter. In these days when the highest feeling which man can 

 experience after years of true devotion, is said to be something like 

 the love of a dog for its master, or a monkey for its beloved keeper 

 — when all intellectual action is reduced to mere molecular vibra- 

 tion, and when the moral sense is believed to be identical with the 

 social instinct, there is, I fear, little chance of exciting interest in 

 the study of mere structure. The man who suggests, ever so 

 gently, that many of the grand generalizations of which we are now 

 so proud are founded on statements that have never been put to the 

 test of observation, will certainly be characterized as a presump- 

 tuous person, unworthy of consideration. And yet it is obvious 

 that every fact upon which these conclusions are based should have 

 been carefully examined, and the reasoning analysed step by step. I 

 dare say that the doctrine that in the struggle for existence, he who 

 survives is unquestionably the fittest, affords consolation to the 

 victims about to be extinguished, and more than compensates for 

 the questionable advantage of surviving enjoyed by others upon 

 whom has been imposed the duties of executioner by the benign 

 influence of natural selection ; but it is surely worthy of enquiry 

 how far the facts upon which this grand conclusion is based may 

 be otherwise explained, since there is no reason for regarding the 

 doctrine as final, and further investigation superfluous or sealed. 



" Both bodily and mental processes are correlated with the natural 

 agencies of heat, light, electricity, chemical affinity, mechanical 

 force, and gravitation," is a dictum now generally believed, but 



