4 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 



mass would follow. . . . From time to time some of the peai'-shaped 

 protrusions are disturbed from the parent mass, and become independent 

 masses of germinal matter, which grow until they become ordinary pus 

 corpuscles. Are these phenomena, I would ask, at all like any known 

 to occur in lifeless material ?" 



If we abstract the questions implied in the words ''germinal/' and 

 " growth," I think our answer may be in the affirmative. 



We can follow him into his examination further. " A bulging may 

 occur" in lifeless as well as in living matter " at one point of the cir- 

 cumference, or at ten or twenty different points at the same moment." 

 But he cannot prove that "the moving power evidently resides in 

 every particle of a very transparent, invariably colourless, and struc- 

 tureless material." It seems to do so; but it would also seem to 

 reside in every particle of the lifeless matter, when changing, if we 

 were not well aware that the change is due to a difference of tempera- 

 ture. 



It appears to me that various kinds of organized matter have what 

 I might term specific temperatures, the limits of Vf'hich vary in different 

 substances — below the lowest as above the highest they are motionless. 

 This holds good of lifeless as well as of living matter. 



The objections which Dr. Beale raises, justlj^ enough, to certain 

 theories do not here apply. He says, "because molecules have been 

 seen in some of the masses of moving matter, the motion has been attri- 

 buted to them. It is true, the molecules do move, but the living 

 transparent material in which they are situated moves first, and the 

 molecules flow into the extended portion." 



This may be likewise noticed in a fluid in which are granules, when 

 it protrudes under the influence of heat. The fluid is acted on ; the 

 granules are drawn with it. 



"The movements," he adds, " cannot therefore be ordinary mole- 

 cular movements. It has been said that the movements may result 

 from diffusion, but what diffusion or any other movement with which 

 we are acquainted at all resembles them ? Observers have ascribed 

 them to a difference of density of different parts, but who has been able 

 to produce such movements by preparing fluids of different density ? 

 iN'or is it any explanation of the movements to attribute them to inherent 

 contractility, unless we can show in what this contractility essentially 

 consists. Some dismiss the matter by saying that the movements 

 depend upon the property of contractility, but the movements of 

 biological matter are totally distinct from contractility, as manifested 

 by muscular tissue. 



He adds: " I have often tried to persuade the physicist, who has so 

 long prophesied the existence of molecular machinery in living beings, 

 to seek first in the coloui^less, structureless, living matter. But he 

 contents himself with asserting that such machinery exists, although he 

 cannot see it or make it evident to himself or others." 



The instinct of the physicist, even if it were no more than an in- 

 stinct, was, 1 think, right in this matter. 



