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capable of enduring. To him it seemed only common sense to suppose that 

 there was a difference between living matter and non-living matter ; and when 

 it was said that certain solutions had been subjected to heat which had des 

 troyed all living matter in them, and when afterwards living matter was found 

 to exist there, did it not prove only that they had found something which that 

 amount of heat was insufficient to destroy ? 



Dr. Beale said that with reference to the remarks of his friend, Professor 

 Lawson, as to the development of bone, he could only say tbat bone, of all 

 tissues, was the one which he should have brought forward as being of all things 

 most likely toprope his point ; he had elsewhere, he thought, fully shown this, 

 and had given drawings from actual specimens for the purpose of illustrating 

 the whole process of the development of bone from the simple bioplasts. Of 

 course his views were true for all or none, and if any one could give him but one 

 single clear instance against his conclusions, he would at once give up. Of 

 course it must be a distinct proof, and one which would in every respect stand 

 the test of thorough examination, and could be readily verified and repeated by 

 others. He was quite sure that Mr. Lowne had never seen a piece of protoplasm 

 frozen in his life. He (Dr, Beale) did not think that living matter that had 

 ever been actually frozen had continued to live. That a living animal, or a part 

 of a living animal, might bo frozen without being " killed," was, of course, 

 perfectly true, but who had proved that its living matter, its bioplasm, had been 

 converted into solid ice ? 



Mr, Lowne observed that, at all events, when it was thawed, it became proto- 

 plasm again. 



Dr. Beale — continuing his reply — pointed out that he did not contend that 

 new living matter, produced by existing living matter, was identically the same 

 in all respects as that which produced it ; there was not identity ; there was 

 variety in many particulars, and this variety, in property and power, was a most 

 remarkable thing, especially when considered in connection with transmitted 

 characteristics. It was well known that there were strong resemblances between 

 offspring and parents, but never anything approaching indistinguishable resem 

 blance. There might be likenesses not only in the shape of the nails and in 

 the skin, but even in the way the mind worked, likeness in weaknesses of the 

 body, and the defects of the workings of the mind ; even rheumatism and sick- 

 headaches, as well as good and bad tempers, were inherited. So that while it 

 was clear that there were many endowments as well as arrangements of the 

 material fabric that were inherited, it was also true that certain properties, and 

 powers, and endowments, as well as peculiarities in the structure of the body 

 existed, which could not be accounted for by inheritance- But every kind of 

 living matter in the world, whatever might have been its origin, possessed 

 properties like those manifested by every other kind of living matter, but differ- 

 ing essentially from any properties or powers known to exist in connection with 

 any form of non-living matter. With regard to Mr. Lowne's instance of the 

 burnt sugar, if he could show that the particles of burnt sugar were capable of 

 taking up material from the mc'lium in which they were placed, and turning 

 that material into burnt sugar, then, but then only, would he have succeeded in 

 showing that the burnt sugar behaves as particles of living matter. 



Mr. Lowne said that great stress should always be laid upon the word suitable, 

 it was always suitable material which was taken up and made into similar 

 matter. Now, if they took a galvanic battery, and conducted the wires to a 

 Bolution containing salts of copper and salts of zinc, it was quite possible for a 



