104 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 
their magnetism and polarity. “ But the most curious illustration 
of the identity of the elementary life in plants and animals, is 
found in the fact that the former as well as the latter are subject 
to the influence of anzsthetics. A sensitive plant confined under 
a bell-glass, with a sponge filled with ether, soon ceases to mani- 
fest any sensibility. Withdraw the sponge, and it will speedily 
recover germination. Fermentation may be arrested by the 
same means. Seeds of cress kept under the influence of ether 
for five or six days, remained quite passive. But they were only 
sleeping, and not killed. As soon as the ether was removed, ger- 
mination set in at once with activity. The same thing is true of 
fermentation.” It was stated as the results of all these investi- 
gations, “that in protoplasm we find the only form of matter in 
which life can manifest itself, and that though the outer condi- 
tions of life — heat, air, water, food — may be all present, proto- 
plasm would be still needed, in order that their conditions may 
be utilized. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that all 
protoplasm is identical. Of two particles of protoplasm, between 
which we may defy all the power of the microscope, all the 
resources of the laboratory to detect a difference, one can develop 
only to a jelly-fish, the other only to a man, and one conclusion 
alone is here possible-—that deep within them there must be a 
fundamental difference which thus determines their inevitable 
destiny, but of which we know nothing, and can assert nothing 
beyond the statement that it must depend upon their hidden 
molecular constitution.” 
And here I would venture a crude idea—that if protoplasm 
as revealed by the microscope, is really the beginning of life, its 
ultimate development may depend, less upon a hidden molecular 
constitution in the cell units, in which no differences can be dis- 
covered, than upon cell aggregation. Or, is it produced according 
to Dr. Fraser’s theory, by the atoms assuming polarity, being 
vivified by magnetic action. The last would not be spontaneous 
generation, but something analogous. Really, all we know is, 
that like in the animal and vegetable proceeds from like. But it 
is an important admission by Dr. Allman, to which I would jein 
the idea just expressed, “that his assertion does not in the least 
diminish the vast difference which separates lifeless from living 
matter, nor lessen the mystery of life itself. No chemist has yet 
built up one particle of living matter out of lifeless elements.” 
Or, as I understand it, no chemist, or magnetist, or electrician, 
has yet made a protoplasm, or brought together atomic condi- 
tions necessary to create unicellular existence, much less to endow 
