428 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



There is, however, a second way open to the student 



of the phenomena of life, and this may be termed 



an. the " physical method," as opposed to the " structural." 



"physical" Thus chemists and physicists first establish the general 



method. r J 



laws of motion and change in dynamics and energetics, 

 and subsequently apply them to special problems, such 

 as those of physical astronomy or the chemistry of 

 electrolysis and solution. Similarly the physiologist 

 may study the processes common to all living matter, 

 and look upon the action of a definite cell, tissue, or 

 organ merely as an application of these general processes. 

 From this point of view structural biology, like struc- 

 tural chemistry, only furnishes illustrations, not an ex- 

 planation, of the vital processes : the . special structure 

 or organ is a result of the process or function 

 not its cause. As Prof. Michael Foster says, " We may 

 throw overboard altogether all conceptions of life as 

 the outcome of organisation, as the mechanical result 

 of structural conditions, and attempt to put physi- 

 ology on the same footing as physics and chemistry, 

 and regard all vital phenomena as the complex pro- 

 ducts of certain fundamental properties exhibited by 

 matter, which, either from its intrinsic nature or from 



plasm. Protoplasm consists of a i the descriptions of protoplasmic 



ground mass in many cases com- ! architecture help us much, and 



pletely homogeneous, in most cases ! "hold to the fundamental principle 



very finely foam-like or honeycomb- that living matter acts by virtue of 



like, in which lies embedded a j its structure, provided the term 



greater or less quantity of very I structure be used in a sense which 



various solid elements or granules. 

 In the foam - like protoplasm the 

 granules always lie at the corners 

 and angles where the foam-vacuoles 

 come together, never in the liquid 



carries it beyond the limits of ana- 

 tomical investigation i. e. , beyond 

 the knowledge which can be at- 

 tained either by the scalpel or the 

 microscope" (Burdon Sanderson, 



of the bubbles themselves. " Some j 'Address,' Brit. Assoc. , 1889, p. 

 physiologists think that none of I 607). 



