104 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 



their magnetism and polarity. " But the most curious illustration 

 of the identity of the elementary life in plants and animals, is 

 found in the fact that the former as well as the latter are subject 

 to the influence of anaesthetics. A sensitive plant confined under 

 a bell-glass, with a sponge filled with ether, soon ceases to mani- 

 fest any sensibility. Withdraw the sponge, and it will speedily 

 recover germination. Fermentation may be arrested by the 

 same means. Seeds of cress kept under the influence of ether 

 for five or six days, remain quite passive. But they were only 

 sleeving, and not killed. As soon as the ether was removed, ger- 

 mination set in at once with activity. The same thing is true of 

 fermentation." It was stated as the results of all these investi- 

 gations, " that in protoplasm we find the only form of matter in 

 which life can manifest itself, and that though the outer condi- 

 tions of life — heat, air, water, food — may be all present, proto- 

 plasm would lie still needed, in order that their conditions may 

 be utilized. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that all 

 protoplasm is identical. Of two particles of protoplasm, between 

 which we might defy all the powers of the microscrope, all the 

 resources of the laboratory to detect a difference, one can develop 

 only to a jelly-fish, the other only to a man, and one conclusion 

 alone is here possible, — that deep within them there must be a 

 fundamental difference which thus determines their inevitable 

 destiny, but of which we know nothing, and can assert nothing 

 beyond the statement that it must depend upon their hidden 

 molecular constitution." 



And here I would venture a crude idea — that if protoplasm, 

 as revealed by the microscope, is really the beginning of life, its 

 ultimate development may depend less upon a hidden molecular 

 constitution in the cell units, in which no differences can be dis- 

 covered, than upon cell aggregation. Or, is it produced according 

 to Dr. Fraser's theory, by the atoms assuming polarity, being 

 vivified by magnetic action. The last would not be spontaneous 

 generation, but something analogous. Really, all we know is, 

 that like in the animal and vegetable proceeds from like. But it 

 is an important admission by Dr. Allman, to which I would join 

 the idea just expressed, "that his assertion does not in the least 

 diminish the vast difference which separates lifeless from living 

 matter, nor lessen the mystery of life itself. No chemist has yet 

 built up one particle of living matter out of lifeless elements." 

 Or, as J understand it, no chemist, or magnetic, or electrician, 

 has yet made protoplasm, or brought together atomic condi- 

 tion^ necessary to create unicellular existence, much less to endow 



