The President's Address. By L. S. Beale, F.B.8. 195 



matter first live. As to the actual nature of this wonderful 

 change which occurs, we are, and from a purely physical point of 

 view must remain, in darkness. For it is certain that the new 

 temporary living state is absolutely distinct from the non-living 

 state in which the matter existed but an instant before. Before 

 long this will, I doubt not, be generally admitted by those 

 acquainted with the facts, and not biassed by previous confessions 

 or beliefs. 



It is invariably in living matter devoid of structure and form, 

 that all those wonderful actions of surpassing interest which result 

 in the development of form the most striking and structure the 

 most elaborate, are carried on. Forces or powers, but of a non- 

 material order, transmitted through succeeding particles of the 

 same kind, and continuously operating, it may be upon vast 

 quantities of matter, through centuries or centuries of centuries 

 (" millions on millions of years "), are the activities by which the 

 rearrangement of the elements under certain fixed conditions 

 which eventuate in definite and predetermined form, structure, and 

 composition, is brought about. The changes, conversions, for- 

 mations in question, at present invisible and undemonstrable, 

 require considerable time for their completion. Compared with the 

 visible phenomena which succeed them, and which may be 

 watched, described, and delineated by us, they are slow indeed. 

 During days, weeks, and months, in darkness and in silence, 

 arrangements and rearrangements of the most complex character 

 incessantly and quietly proceed, as we say, in obedience to laws 

 (though we do not hnoiv), ere the first visible traces of the new 

 being can be discerned by the most careful investigation. 



Kemember that the changes in question afiect a mere modicum 

 of matter. A grain, nay, the hundredth, the thousandth part of a 

 grain, and far less than this may at one time constitute the 

 material substance from which springs a tree that in its maturity 

 will comprise tons of matter, every grain of which will be stamped 

 with individuality. Is it not, then, most strange that in these 

 days which surpass all previous time in the passion exhibited by 

 men to see into the nature of things, that attention should be so 

 much absorbed in considerations relating to the mere matter of 

 which a living thing is . made, while the study of the forces and 

 powers which have effected the forming and shaping of the material 

 substance is not only almost wholly neglected, but positively 

 discouraged? And yet these forces or powers fashion the germ 

 and cause it to be like its predecessors, or modify its character and 

 cause it to give rise to forms perhaps not before attained. With 

 what shall these forces of the living world, operating so marvel- 

 lously upon infinitesimal particles of matter, be compared ? The 

 changes have been likened to those which take place in the forma- 



