220 PEOPESSOE LIONEL S. BEALE, P.E.C.P., P.E.S., ON 



matter. Of course there are very important and deep 

 scientific questions that have been, and may be suggested as 

 I'egards the state of the Hving matter which receives the 

 solution of non-living nutrient substances — and there is room 

 for difference of opinion. The nutritive matter in solution 

 certainly passes through the " cell wall," and actually " into 

 the substance of the living matter of the cell/' 



The living power or Vitality is the factor which selects 

 from the water certain appropriate substances and causes 

 their elements (?) to change their position and to be 

 differently arranged. The elements being brought into new 

 relations with one another, are so arranged that new living- 

 matter immediately results. Life power seems to be imparted 

 by the already existing living matter, but without change in, 

 or loss of its power, and some of the non-living matter 

 lohicii was in solution lives. The arrangement, as it seems to 

 me, really depends on what we call living or vital potver only, 

 the actual nature of which has not yet been ascertained, and 

 I do not know how it is to be discovered. You cannot 

 isolate life, or separate it, or examine it, or investigate it. or 

 study it, or cause it to change its form or mode, as you can 

 heat, light, electricity, magnetism, etc. You can only judge 

 by what vital power has effected. You can analyse the 

 material which passes into living matter, and you can make 

 out its composition by chemical analysis, but as soon as it 

 gets into the living matter, it is changed — it lives — and then, 

 if you try to find out what living matter is composed of you 

 fail. In fact the first thing you do is to hill it. Some physical 

 philosophers have said, the "protoplasm'' consists of so and 

 so, but I answer : — "the material you examine is lifeless, and 

 is produced at the death of the living matter, and certain 

 non-living substances result." It is impossible to say what is 

 the composition of living matter, because you cannot tost it 

 without first destroying its life, and therefore what you test is 

 not living matter but only the substances which result from 

 its death. 



Now, I may venture to consider the question of water 

 which ig present in every living particle in nature'^ I hope 

 some day, when there may be time, I may be permitted to 

 offer some remarks on the broad question of air and its 

 service to life. Water is a very broad question indeed, and 

 1 do not think it has been adequately considered during the 

 past fifty years, in its relation to life. I^o living matter can 

 exist — no living matter can be produced or originate — no 



