132 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[July, 



In the light of these facts we can 

 perceive how the interior of a water- 

 plant may become of more impor- 

 tance to it than the exterior, for most 

 physiological purposes, and under 

 these circumstances it is not strange 

 that we find such important organs of 

 the metastatic process as the hairs, 

 transferred from the exterior to the 

 interior, where the amount of surface 

 exposed to the interchanging gases is. 

 many times greater than that exposed 

 to the external atmosphere. 



The Microscopic Limit and 

 Beyond.* 



Increased skill and ever-extending 

 knowledge may enable the scientific 

 worker not only to reach the utmost 

 limit of inquiry in his time, but possi- 

 bly to gratify that constant desire to 

 see into the limitless region which 

 lies beyond the bounds of actual in- 

 vestigation. This is the hope which 

 encourages the thoughtful observer ; 

 for who would not consent to spend 

 years in patient research, if by so do- 

 ing he could succeed, as it were, in 

 projecting his intellect, were it ever 

 so short a distance, beyond the cir- 

 cumscribed region in which the 

 senses can alone operate ? Failures 

 and disappointments may be endured 

 if only the observer's mind be buoyed 

 up by the hope that ere his nerve- 

 tissues grow too old, and begin to fail, 

 the longing of his intellect will prob- 

 ably be gratified. To many, indeed, 

 who are unable or unwilling to look 

 into the secrets of nature, such hopes 

 and desires will seem unintelligible or 

 incredible. They will be regarded 

 as the idle fancies of an idle mind ; 

 and the ardent scientific inquirer will 

 be pitied or condemned as a weak, 

 foolish person who, like a child, is 

 unable to repress his morbid curiosi- 

 ty to peer into the unseen, and his 

 craving to know the unknowable ; — 



* Extracts from the presidential address of 

 Lionel S. Beale, F.R.S., delivered before 

 the Royal Microscopical Society, London, at 

 the annual meeting, February 9th, 1881. 



as one deserving to be classed with 

 simpletons and madmen, on the 

 ground that it is absurd to suppose 

 that a really sensible person would 

 spend his life in hard work without 

 remuneration, in preference to doing 

 that which would enable him to gain 

 wealth, and to live at ease, if not in 

 luxury and enjoyment. And certain- 

 ly it must be confessed that in few 

 departments of research is there less 

 prospect of gaining by success such 

 rewards as are generally sought for, 

 than in the one to which we are 

 attached. 



The microscopist, like the astrono- 

 mer, is ever longing to get a little be- 

 yond the point at which he has already 

 arrived. Each new fact gained by 

 research seems but to indicate the 

 existence of more and more impor- 

 tant things beyond. Limit is reached 

 and then surmounted, but soon a new 

 limit seems to rise from the mists in 

 the distance, towards which the work- 

 er is impelled by new hopes and de- 

 sires. It is this never halting pro- 

 gress which distinguishes scientific 

 from any other kind of inquiry, and 

 particularly microscopical investiga- 

 tion, for it can never be completed. 

 It deals with the illimitable. The 

 boundaries of to-day are found to 

 have vanished to-morrow, and the 

 eyes and understanding begin to pen- 

 etrate into regions which but a short 

 time before had been considered far 

 beyond the range of possible investi- 

 gation. ******** 



Our present limit of observation in 

 investigations on the structure and 

 action of the tissues of man and the 

 higher animals, in my opinion, in- 

 cludes the use of magnifying powers 

 of upwards of 2,000 diameters. Ob- 

 jects considerably less than the hun- 

 dred thousandth of an inch in di- 

 ameter can be studied with success, 

 but how much less than these dimen- 

 sions cannot, I think, be determined 

 with accuracy at this time ; for so 

 rnuch depends upon the character of 

 the object, and a number of small 

 points of detail as regards the mode 



