14 president's address. 



then to pull up short at the problems involved in intracellular 

 activity and deny the applicability of physico-chemical explana- 

 tion to the phenomena there manifested. It is admitted on all 

 hands that "the elementary problems of biology, — growth, 

 development, nutrition, secretion, heredity, excitability, &c." — are 

 at bottom intracellular problems. And in my humble opinion, if 

 we knew as many facts regarding the material organisation of 

 living cells, and were able to make the same kind of observation 

 and experiment upon them as we can upon cell-complexes, we 

 should then find that physics and chemistry could do for us 

 exactly the same kind of thing, — not less, — and as certainly not 

 more, — than they have done in explanation of those processes of 

 which, Dr. Haldane thinks, we have already " perfectly satis- 

 factory explanations." 



In this connection it may be useful to recall the views upon 

 the same subject of another distinguished young physiologist, as 

 expressed in the interesting address on " the relations between 

 morphology and physiology," to which probably most of you had 

 the pleasure of listening at the opening of the biological section 

 of the Australasian Association at its meeting in Sydney last 

 year. There Professor Martin discourses, among other matters, 

 concerning the limitations of the physiological physico-chemical 

 movement of the last half century, " so far as a complete under- 

 standing of life is concerned." He remarks that, "The physiolo- 

 gists, too, having studied the chemistry and physics of phenomena 

 associated with the life of higher animals, have tracked physio- 

 logical activity into the cell. Here, for the time being, a view of 

 the mechanism is lost, and cellular physiology does not appear 

 capable of being successfully attacked along the same lines of 

 mechanical interpretation which have proved so successful in 

 dealing with the functions of compound organs." 



" One must not imagine," he continues, " that morphological 

 or physiological inquiry of the character which has been so 

 fruitfully prosecuted during the last half-century is in any sense 

 exhausted." 



