October 14, 1915] 



NATURE 



185 



One of the most important of these, I venture to 

 think, is the extension of co-operative research, both 

 scientific and industrial. In the case of industrial 

 work manufacturers are afraid of making their wants 

 and difficulties known lest the mere statement of them 

 should enable a British rival to find a solution and 

 get ahead. It is necessary to appreciate, however, 

 that rivalry between British manufacturers is not 

 nearly such a serious matter as the competition of 

 Germany with all of them will become, and 

 that British manufacturers will have to stand 

 shoulder to shoulder to meet the common foe. 

 German firms do not hesitate to pool their 

 knowledge if it enables Germany to get ahead 

 of other nations, and British trades will therefore have 

 to meet this organisation by one of a similar kind. 

 In the same manner I have long been convinced that 

 far greater advances might be made in purely scientific 

 research in many departments of knowledge if we 

 were to adopt more extensively the custom of associated 

 work. I mean by this the formation of committees 

 of workers, not too large for expeditious decisions, but 

 charged with the duty of investigating certain formu- 

 lated problems. It is in this respect that our learned 

 societies might do so much more than they do.. The 

 proceedings of these societies are mostly a record of 

 isolated, disconnected pieces of work of very different 

 scientific value. But if properly organised discussion 

 were brought to bear on the question, it would be 

 possible to induce investigators of reputation and 

 ability to associate themselves more in conjoint work 

 to the great advantage of our common knowledge. 

 The learned societies should therefore fulfil to the 

 adult and experienced investigator the same function 

 which the professor or teacher should fulfil to his 

 research students, viz., supply them with suggestions 

 for lines of research to stimulate thought and inven- 

 tion. 



It is quite certain that we shall have to organise in 

 this way to a far higher degree than we have yet done 

 what may be called the strategy of research, and that 

 the learned societies should act in some capacity like 

 the great general staff of an army towards the sub- 

 ordinate generals and corps commanders. We require 

 therefore to get on to the councils of our learned and 

 technical societies and into their presidential chairs 

 not merely men eminent for their private researches, 

 but men of large ideas with organising abilities and 

 inspirational power. If we do not do this, then, 

 although by a lavish sacrifice of life and treasure we 

 may win, as we are determined to do, in the military 

 and naval operations, we shall in the long run be 

 hopelessly defeated in that slower but none the less 

 deadly scientific and commercial competition which 

 will follow upon the cessation of actual hostilities. 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 

 SECTION D. 



ZOOLOGY. 



Opening Address' by Prof. E. A. Minchin, M..A., 

 Hon. Ph.D., F.R.S., President of the Section. 



The Evolution of the Cell. 

 I propose in this address to deal with an aspect of 

 cytology which appears to me not to have received as 

 yet the attention which it deserves, namely, the evolu- 

 tion of the cell and of its complex organisation as 

 revealed by the investigation of cytologists. Up to 

 the present time, the labours of professed cytologists 

 have been directed almost entirely towards the study 

 of the cell in its most perfect form as it occurs in the 



1 Abridged by the author. 



NO. 2398, VOL. 96] 



Metazoa and the higher plants. Many cytologists 

 appear, indeed, to regard the cell, as they know it 

 in the Metazoa and Metaphyta, as the beginning- of 

 all things, the primordial unit in the evolution of 

 living beings. For my part I would as soon postu- 

 late the special creation of man as believe that the 

 metazoan cell, with its elaborate organisation and its 

 extraordinarily perfected method of nuclear division 

 fey karyokinesis, represents the starting-point of the 

 evolution of life. So long, however, as the attention 

 of cytologists is confined to the study of the cells 

 building up the bodies of the higher animals and 

 plants, they are not brought face to face with the 

 stages of evolution of the cell, but are confronted 

 only with the cell as a finished and perfected product 

 of evolution, that is to say, with cells which, although 

 they may show infinite variation in subordinate points 

 of structure and activity, are nevertheless so funda- 

 mentally of one type that their plan of structure and 

 mode of reproduction by division can be described in 

 general terms once and for all in the first chapter of 

 a biological text-book or in the opening lecture of a 

 course of elementary biology. 



One of the most striking features of the general 

 trend of biological investigation during the last two 

 decades has been the attention paid to the Protista, 

 that vast assemblage of living beings invisible, with 

 few exceptions, to the unassisted human vision, and 

 in some cases minute beyond the range of the most 

 powerful microscopes of to-day. The study of the 

 Protista has yielded results of the utmost importance 

 for general scientific knowledge and theory. The 

 morphological characteristic of the Pr^otista, speaking 

 generally, is that the body of the individual does not 

 attain to a higher degree of organisation than that 

 of the single cell. The exploitation, if I may use the 

 term, of the Protista, though still in its initial stages, 

 has already shown that it is amongst these organisms 

 that we have to seek for the forms which indicate the 

 evolution of the cell, both those lines of descent which 

 lead on to the cell as seen in the Metazoa and Meta- 

 phyta, as well as other lines leading in directions 

 altogether divergent from the typical cell of the text- 

 book. We find in the Protista every possible condi- 

 tion of structural differentiation and elaboration, from 

 cells as highly organised as those of Metazoa, or 

 even in some cases much more so, back to types of 

 structure to which the term cell can only be applied 

 by stretching its meaning to the breaking-point. 



It is impossible any longer to regard the cell as 

 seen in the Metazoa and as defined in the text-books 

 as the starting-point of organic evolution. It must 

 be recognised that this type of cell has a long history 

 of evolution behind it, which must be traced out, so 

 far as the data permit. The construction of phylo- 

 genies and evolutionary series is, of course, purely 

 speculative, since these theories relate to events which 

 have taken place in a remote past, and which can 

 only be inferred dimly and vaguely from such frag- 

 ments of wreckage as are to be found stranded on 

 the sands of the time in which we live. .Ml attempts, 

 therefore, to trace the evolution of the Protista must 

 be considered as purely tentative at present. If I 

 venture upon any such attempt, it is to be regarded 

 as indicating a firm belief on mv part that the evolu- 

 tion of the cell has taken place amongst the Protista, 

 and that its stages can be traced there, rather than as 

 a dogmatic statement that the evolution has taken 

 place in just the manner which seems to me most 

 probable. 



Before, however, I can proceed to deal with my 

 main subject, it is absolutely necessary that I should 

 define clearly the sense in which I propose to use 

 certain terms, more especially the words "cell," 

 "nucleus," "chromatin," "protoplasm," and "cyto- 



