THE MICROSCOPE. 181 
the fetters of dualistic philosophy bind the minds of scientific men, 
even of our day. The prevailing cosmology of our day, as did that 
of antiquity, assumes that the phenomena of organic life are 
explicable only by purposive causes, and that they in no way admit 
of a mechanical explanation; that is, one entirely based on natural 
science. 
Although we know absolutely nothing of the causes which led 
to the origination of living matter, it must not be supposed that the 
differences between living and not-living matter are such as to 
justify the assumption that the forces at work in the one are differ- 
ent from those to be met with in the other. The teaching of 
modern biology is, that the phenomena of life are all dependent 
upon the working of the same physical and chemical forces as those 
which are active in the rest of the world. In this light, it is not 
difficult to imagine, in the remote ages when the condition of the 
earth’s crust was such as to determine great activity in chemical 
combinations and decompositions, that the rearrangement and 
redistribution of atoms gradually became more and more complex, 
until finally, under some unusual combination of physical forces, 
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen united to form the wonder- 
fully complex molecule of protoplasm. 
To the consistent evolutionist, one minute particle of living 
matter thus formed is sufficient to account for the presence on the 
earth of all the organized bodies that exist or have existed. Any 
further independent formation of protoplasm would be sheer waste. 
Whether or not science will ever solve the problem of the 
origin of life, can not now be known, but we do not think our corre- 
spondent has offered to microscopists a way to immortalize 
themselves. 
HE second session of the Marine Biological Labora- 
tory, located at Wood’s Hall, Mass., will open June 
3d, and continue to August 3lst. Dr. C. O. Whitman, of the 
Lake Laboratory, will be the Director, assisted in the Investigator’s 
Department by Howard Ayres, Ph. D., and E. G. Gardiner, Ph. D., 
and in the Student’s Department by J. S. Kingsley, Se. D., 
instructor in zoology; James E. Humphrey, S. B., instructor in 
botany, and Playfair McMarrich, Ph. D., instructor in microscopical 
technique. Circular and further information regarding the course 
may be obtained from the Secretary, Miss A. D. Phillips, 23 
Marlborough street, Boston, Mass. Teachers of science residing 
inland should avail themselves of this opportunity to combine 
