Vol. XIV. No. 10 -Botanical Gazette -Oct., i889. 



Protoplasm and its history. 



i 



GEORGE L. GOODALE. 



In the department of biology there are three subjects of 



transcendent interest, namely, protoplasm, or living-matter. 



development, and adaptation. In fact the interest in some 



phases of these subjects is now so general and deep that the 



special students in this department feel that they have to a 



great extent the sympathy and cooperation of the public at 



large. This interest renders possible the construction of such 



commodious laboratories as this, the latest acquisition of the 



University of Toronto, in which we are now permitted to 



meet. The generous halls and adequate equipment of this 



laboratory and other biological laboratories throughout our 



country and Europe, testify to the existence of a wide-spread 



belief that the new natural history has very much to learn and 



much to teach in regard to many of the great problems of 

 life. 



In the annual gatherings of the members of our section 

 for the exchange of views and for better fellowship, it has 

 been found expedient for us to look at one or the other of 

 these three subjects at the outset of our work, in a somewhat 

 broad and yet special manner. 



Your chairman for the present year asks the privilege of 

 selecting, as his topic for the introductory address, the first 

 of the subjects mentioned. You are invited to examine the 

 more recent additions to our knowledge of protoplasm, 

 stricting the examination to discoveries in the field of 

 botany. 



Whether we consider protoplasm, or the living-matter of 

 plants and animals, from the point of view of physics, of 

 chemistry, of physiology, or of philosophy, we have before 

 us a topic which has received, and which continues to receive, 

 the most assiduous attention. Hence its literature, though 

 comparatively recent, is appallingly voluminous, and any at- 

 tempt to treat the subject, or any considerable part of it, ex- 

 haustively, within the limits properly imposed upon introduc- 



Address delivered bv Professor George L. Goodale, of Harvard University , as Vice-Pres- 

 ident of the Biological Section of the A. A. A. S.. at Toronto, August 28. 1889. 



re- 



