830 PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



far being reduced to the position of elements in the cosmos 

 viewed as a mechanically determined material system. 



There seems no reasonable ground for believing that the con- 

 tinued application of the same instruments and principles of 

 research, of the same naturalistic conceptions, which has already 

 yielded such magnificent fruit in the proximate interpretation of 

 function and structure, will henceforth become more and more 

 barren. In the struggle after scientific progress what other 

 weapons have we to rely upon? It is significant that, even 

 amongst those who steadfastly deny the sufficiency of chemico- 

 physical interpretations of living process, are to be numbered 

 investisators who have themselves been forward in the applica- 

 tion of the most rigidly exact methods of weight, measurement 

 and analysis, in the study of vital phenomena. They have thus 

 done homage to the methods in which the mechanical principle is 

 already in a sense implied, admitting its applicability to certain 

 aspects at least of the phenomena to be investigated. 



Is there then any justification for the contention of the 

 " vitalist" of this latest era in physiology? Is there any point 

 at which the principles of physical and experimental inquiry fail 

 in applicability; any aspect of living activity which they are 

 incapable of embodying 1 



It is claimed, as we have seen, that physiological investigation 

 has not succeeded in eliminating the idea of purpose from the last 

 interpretation of any biological fact of structure and function 

 which has been offered for analysis. 



That science will ever enable us to say that at last we have a 

 perfect, self-consistent and complete mechanical explanation of 

 even the simplest fact of living process or tissue seems to me to 

 be in the highest degree improbable. 



The brilliant physiological analysis of the mode of working of 

 the bodily organs which is one of the characteristic products of the 

 biological activity of the century has indeed by no means ceased. 

 But though still proceeding in manifold and specialised directions, 

 it is hampered at almost every turn by the difficulties attaching 

 to an explanation of the living activity of the cell unit. 



