5^"rrnai;A"rch'i?'i«7Sl] J^oyol Microscopcd Society. 121 



may hope that the lapse of twelve years gives additional force to the 

 following words of our own first President in his Address at the Leeds 

 meeting of the British Association : — " The microscope is an indis- 

 pensable instrument in embryological and histological researches, 

 as also in reference to that vast swarm of animalcules which are too 

 minute for ordinary vision. I can here do little more than allude 

 to the systematic direction now given to the application of the 

 microscope to particular tissues and particular classes, chiefly due in 

 this country to the counsels and example of the Microscopical Society 

 of London," 



At our meeting in April, Dr. Beale, treading on the very con- 

 fines of the limit of human knowledge, brought a question before us 

 which may very easily be answered on the ground of speculation, 

 yet all but unanswerable on the basis of truth. What is Proto- 

 2)lasm ? and. What is Life ? In consequence of the penumbra of 

 diametrically opposite definitions, Dr. Beale rejects the word Proto- 

 plasm, so much in favour with metaj^hysical physicists, and he enables 

 us to look on at the battle of the giants vigorously destroying each 

 other's theories but failing to establish their own. In propounding 

 his own views concerning the matter of living beings, Dr. Beale 

 restricts himself to the simple and expressive terms, germinal 

 matter and formed onatter. The former is possessed of vital pro- 

 perties, and the latter of material proj^erties only. The rather 

 striking difference between dead and hving matter seems to justify 

 the rejection of a term which is indiscriminately applied to masses of 

 hving things and dead things, and to warrant the use of other terms 

 which are free from the mysteriousness of proto2)lasm, and which 

 properly indicate matter existing in two very different states, living 

 and formed. 



Then, as to the question. What is Life ? This much we know, 

 on the highest authority, that Life is the direct gift of the Creator 

 to the living creatm'es of His hands, and for perfect knowledge we 

 must wait for the perfect day, when " we shaU know even as also 

 we are known." Meanwhile, the conscientious observer is amply 

 justified in investigating the Law of Life as well as the Law of 

 Gravitation, telling us, as it may seem to him, what it is and how it 

 acts ; and if he advance no farther than a plausible hypothesis, he 

 may thereby direct us Truth-ward though he reach not the goal 

 himself. We can place no limit to legitimate inquiry, nor refuse a 

 hearty reception of well-established facts. At the same time let us 

 bear this in mind, Hiimanuni est errare, and it may be that universal 

 error is received as practical truth, — but truth is not error for all 

 that. 



In the discussion of an allied subject, Mr. Staniland Wake 

 strongly supports the view that the connection between the initial 

 phases of animal and vegetable life is more fundamental than has 



