THE PEOCESSES OF LIFE REVEALED BY THE MICRO- 

 SCOPE; A PLEA FOR PHYSIOLOGICAL HISTOLOGY. 1 



By Simon Henry Gage, B. S., 



Of Ithaca, N. Y. 



It is characteristic of the races of men that almost at the dawn of 

 reflection the first question that presses for solution is this one of life — 

 life as manifested in men and in the animals and plants around them. 

 What and whence is it, and whither does it tend? Then the sky with 

 its stars, the earth with its sunshine and storm, light and darkness, 

 stand out like great mountain peaks demanding explanation. So in 

 the life of every human being, repeating the history of his race, as the 

 evolutionists are so fond of saying, the fundamental questions are first 

 to obtrude themselves upon the growing intelligence. There is no 

 waiting, no delay for trifling with the simpler problems; the most 

 fundamental and most comprehensive come immediately to the fore 

 and alone seem worthy of consideration. But as age advances most 

 men learn to ignore the fundamental questions and to satisfy them- 

 selves with simpler and more secondary matters, as if the great reali- 

 ties were all understood or nonexistent. No doubt to many a parent 

 engaged in the affairs of society, politics, finance, science, or art, the 

 questions that their children put, like drawing aside a thick curtain, 

 bring into view the fundamental questions, the great realities; and we. 

 know again that what is absorbing the power and attention of our 

 mature intellect, what perhaps in pride we feel a mastery over, are 

 only secondary matters after all, and to the great questions of our own 

 youth, repeated with such earnestness by our children, we must con- 

 fess with humility that we still have no certain answers. It behooves 

 us, then, if the main questions of philosophy and science can not be 

 answered at once, to attempt a more modest task, and by studying the 

 individual factors of the problem to hope ultimately to put these 

 together and thus gain some just comprehension of the entire problem. 



This address is, therefore, to deal, not with life itself, but with some 

 of the processes or phenomena which accompany its manifestations. 

 But it is practically impossible to do fruitful work according to the 

 Baconian guide of piling observation on observation. This is very 



1 Address of the president of the American Microscopical Society. Printed in 

 Transactions of the American Microscopical Society, Vol. XVII, 1896, pages 3-29. 



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