TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. DEPT. ANATOMY AND rHTSIOLOGY. 555 



that conception of the Deity which, to use Darwin's own words, is ' the gi-and idea 

 of God hating sin and loving righteousness.' ' 



We cannot help mourning for our great ones, though thej^ he taken from us 

 in the fulness of years, and when their labours have been so numerous and so pro- 

 ductive that we marvel that they have been able to achieve so much within the 

 span of a single life ; but our grief is immeasurably greater when the man of 

 genius is taken from us in the plenitude of strength, as it were upon the threshold 

 of a life full of extraordinary promise. 



Francis Maitland Balfour, whose sudden death has so recently cast a gloom over 

 us all, was a man who appeared destined to advance oiu- knowledge of animal develop- 

 ment more than it had been advanced by the labours of any one of his predecessors. 

 His death recalls the train of thought which we have pursued when reflecting 

 upon the lives and works of such men as Mayowand Bichat, Gerhardt and Clifford. 

 It so much could be achieved in so short a life, what great benefits would science 

 not have derived, what remarkable steps in advance might not have been made, had 

 it been given to these great minds to work on for the good of their race during a 

 lifetime of ordinary length. It must be sufficient for us that it was destined other- 

 wise ; and, in mourning for our departed friend, we may at least i-eflect that we would 

 not have had him less worthy of our admiration in order that we might mourn 

 him the less. 



The Researches of Feancis Maitland Balfour. 



At the risk of having to be somewhat brief in my discussion of the subject 

 proper of this address,! must yield to the impulse which leads me to give you some 

 account of Balfour's work.- 



Having been educated at Harrow, Balfour entered Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 in the year 1870. His i'riend and master, Michael Foster, has told us how, from 

 the very first, besides engaging in systematic studies which he was able to pursue 

 with no small degree of success, he devoted himself with passion to original re- 

 search. At the very outset Balfour engaged in work which led to speculations of 

 a fundamental and far-seeking nature, and of the three embryological papers^ which 

 he wrote before taking his degree, two related to questions which occupied his 

 attention in a special manner to the end. One of these, ' On the Development and 

 Growth of the Layers of the Blastoderm,' contains several statements not afterwards 

 maintained ; for instance, as to the independent origin of the mesoblast in the chick, 

 where it is said ' neither to originate from the epiblast nor from the hypoblast, but 

 to be formed coincidentally with the latter, out of apparently similar segmentation 

 cells.' The other, ' On the Disappearance of the Primitive Groove in the Chick,' 

 calls attention to, and corroborates Dursy's discovery of seven years before, and 

 closes with a suggestion of the great hypothesis (afterwards elaborated) that the 

 primitive streak is a lingering remnant of the blastopore. Balfour also wrote, 

 whilst an undergraduate, ' On the Development of the Blood-vessels in the Chick,' 

 but it may be doubted whether he advanced our knowledge of this obscure 

 subject. 



The ' Elements of EmLryolngy,' by Michael Foster and Balfour, appeared (1874) 

 shortly after Balfour had taken his degree (1878), and Foster has generously 

 recorded how great was the part his pupil took in the production of this book. 

 The month after taking his degree he made his first journey to Naples, and it was 

 whilst working there that he entered upon his remarkable investigation on the 

 development of Elasmobranchs. The natui-al outcome of Gegenbauer's exposi- 



» Tlie Descent of Man and Selection in JRelation to Sex. Second edition (1874), 

 page 144. 



- In the preparation of this part of my address I have been very greatly aided 

 by one of Balfour's pupils, my nephew, D'Arcy W. Thompson, Scholar of "Trinity 

 College. 



" Studies from the Cambridge Physiological Lahoratonj. Part I., 1873. Quarterly 

 Journal of Microscopical Science, vol. xiii. 1873. 



