132 THANSACTIONS AND I'KOCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. lxiii. 



of chemistry and physics ; forgetting that tlieir capital is 

 entirely ideal. 



All cheques, presented to these banks, are necessarily 

 paid in chemical molecules, ultimate atoms, space, time, 

 and other imaginary coins. Biology can never prosper, till 

 it starts a bank of its own, and pays its obligations with 

 its own notes, printed in its own office ; not with cheques 

 on other banks. 



In the present state of our knowledge, the conceptual 

 realm of life has so little relation to the conceptual realm 

 of matter, that ideal coin, current in the one country, cannot 

 be taken at par value in the other. The concept matter, 

 with its modes, space,- and time, has been invented to ex- 

 plain one group of sense impressions ; the concept spirit to 

 explain another group. 



Both are ideal existences, yet some biologists suppose 

 that matter has a real existence, not an ideal one ; and, 

 not content with this, they suppose that spirit has no 

 existence at all. 



This is as if someone were to maintain, that the cause 

 of the phenomena of moonlight is the moon, but as to the 

 phenomena of sunlight, were not only to maintain that the 

 sun is not the cause, but were even to deny that there was 

 any cause at all. 



They forget that matter is not a sense impression, l)ut 

 that it is the scientific explanation of a large group of 

 sense impressions, just as spirit is the scientific explanation 

 of another large group. 



On the Fusion of Nuclei among Plants : A Hvi'o- 

 THESLS. By Pkkcy Gi:oom, M.A., I'.L.S., Lecturer on 

 riant Physiology in the University of Edinbui'gh. 



(Ko.id 8tli Decemljur !«!>«.) 



Piule though we know as to the signilicance of the 

 fusion of the male and female nuclei during the sexual 

 act, we know still less as to the meaning of certain other 

 nuclear unions. Among these latter may be numbered that 

 taking place between the two polar nuclei in the embiyo- 

 sac of Angiosperms, concerning which no explanation 



