350 TROFESSOIi LIONEL S. BEALE, F.E.S., ON 



everything else, can carry on its work under such con- 

 diiions. This point interests me very mucli, for I have 

 been associated, as far as my professional cai-eer has 

 permitted, with animal life as a physiologist. It is not 

 a personal matter with me ; but I am looking at it fi'om 

 a broad point of view as to what is best for the human 

 race. If anj^thing is to be done it ought to be done so as 

 to steadily improve the condition of the human race. We 

 know what the indulgence in intemperance, and other 

 appetites, will foster and bring about. This is why this 

 subject should he studied from a broad point of view, and 

 there, no doubt, our excellent lecturer has shoAvn his 

 "wisdom. When we come to look at these diagrams we 

 see the work he has done, microscopical and otherwise, 

 but this is a point that really ought to extend from the 

 broadest possible basis. 



I apologise for making these i-emarks. but I feel strongly on 

 the subject. (Applause.) 



The President. — If any other members of the Institute wish to 

 speak I hope they will rise and do so. 



Professor Orchard. — I am sui'e we all feel indebted to Prof. 

 Lionel Beale for this important contribution to the discussion of a 

 subject of which I myself had no knowledge whatever. 



AVe all, I think, agree with him that he has proved that vitality 

 is something sid genesis associated with matter, but not in anyway 

 material. 



I must dissent from the expression used by Dr. Shettle as to 

 the material basis of life. It does not strike me as a very happy 

 expression. Life is not built up of matter. There is no doubt of 

 the material use of life. Life does make use of matter. That is 

 very dif^'eient to the notion that it is in any Avay the product of 

 matter. Truly there are many contentions which seem to show- 

 that life is altogether different from anything else. One is surely 

 this, as pointed out by Prof. Lionel Beale — that you cannot 

 transmute j)hysical force into life, nor transmute life into physical 

 force. 



As to the arrangement of the blood ct)rpuscles, when an animal 

 dies, that is surely explicable in some other manner. We must be 

 careful, I think, not to confound accompaniment with cause, nor 

 mistake conditions for effects. Transmutability is a characteristic 

 of vitality. It is sni (jcnesis. Another chai-acteristic is, surcl)-, 



