1895.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 293 



vances most men learn to ignore the fundamental 

 questions -and to satisfy themselves with simpler and 

 more secondary matters as if the great realities were all 

 understood or non-existent. No doubt to many a pa- 

 rent engaged in the affairs of society, politics, finance, 

 science or art, the questions that their children put, like 

 drawing aside a thick curtain, bring into view the 

 fundamental questions, the great realities; and we know 

 again that what is absorbing the power and attention of 

 our mature intellect, what perhaps in pride we feel a 

 mastery over, are only secondary matters after all, and 

 to the great questions of our own youth, repeated with 

 such earnestness by our children, we must confess with 

 humility that we still have no certain answers. It be- 

 hooves us then, if the main questions of philosophy and 

 science cannot be answered at once, to attempt a more 

 modest task and by studying the individual factors of 

 the problem to hope ultimately to put these together 

 and thus gain some just comprehension of the entire 

 problem. 



This address is therefore to deal, not with life itself, 

 but with some of the processes or phenomena which ac- 

 company its manifestations. But it is practically im- 

 possible to do fruitful work according to the Baconian 

 guide of piling observation on observation. This is very 

 liable to be a dead mass devoid of the breath of life. It 

 is a well known fact that the author of the Novum Or- 

 ganum, the key which Bacon supposed would serve as the 

 open-sesame of all difficulties and yield certain knowledge, 

 this potent key did not unlock many of the mysteries of 

 science for its inventor. Every truly scientific man 

 since the world began has recognized the necessity of 

 accurate observation, and no scientific principle has ever 

 yet been discovered simply by speculation; but every one 

 who has really unlocked any of the mysteries of nature 

 has inspired, made alive his observations by the imagi- 



