178 Transactions of the Society. 



appliances, while the instrument itself has been advanced in 

 perfectness. 



But, on the other hand, the great doctrine of Charles Darwin, 

 quickening, as it did, into new life and effort, every region of 

 biology, gave immense impulse to work in all those departments of 

 it which can only be dealt with and understood by means of our 

 instrument. 



The result has been the opening up of new knowledge, new 

 methods, new du-ections and objects of research, and in one sense 

 the formation of new biological sciences, within a couple of decades. 



It would be impossible to follow this outspread of progress, due 

 mainly to the ^Microscope, in the one science of biology ; but, in only 

 one direction, and within the years that lie closest to us, the value 

 of this progress can be readily seen. 



Our knowledge of the septic organisms has led an army of 

 earnest workers to a relative and partial knowledge at least, of their 

 pathogenic congeners ; and in this, with our present resources, lie 

 folded up as it were, indefinite possibilities for the future welfare of 

 not man only — but man and beasts. 



It is a little interesting to note in passing that an impetus was 

 given to this question by the keen interest displayed some fourteen 

 years, or more, ago, and onwards, in the question of abiogenesis 

 versus biogenesis, and the masterly summary of the facts, and the 

 inevitable deductions from them, made by Prof. Huxley in his 

 address, as President, to the British Association in 1870. 



Both biologists and, from a distinct point of view, physicists 

 and chemists, as for instance Prof. Tyndall and Pasteur, continued 

 to prosecute the inquiry ; and during this series of researches two 

 definite results were irresistible. 



The first was that when the experiments were conducted with 

 competent skill — as they certainly were in Tyndall's hands, in the 

 laboratory of the Royal Institution, and on the Alps — it could be 

 deduced absolutely that living things were never seen to arise in 

 not living matter. 



The second deduction, as made from the work effected by bio- 

 logical research pure and simple, was that the septic organisms, as 

 such, do arise always, so far down as our researches have carried us, 

 in the products, either genetic or fissipartitional, of like hving 

 things that had preceded them. 



Abiogenesis was not a discoverable factor in nature's present 

 condition, so far at least as our researches could carry us. And it 

 is of moment to note that since Huxley's conclusions concerning 

 Eedi's doctrine of biogenesis were pronounced in 1870, not only has 

 research in every direction of biological inquiry that could touch 

 the question, confirmed that conclusion, but no facts with any 



