Br. Beetle's Preparations for the Microscope. 829 



fibres can "be seen. The greater the care and patience, and 

 the more time expended on the preparation, the better it is 

 likely to be. 



Dr. Beale expresses a very high opinion of the use of 

 glycerine in examining and proving a multitude of objects, 

 the general principle of preparation being to take care that 

 the glycerine is thoroughly absorbed. 



Carmine and other dying materials will stain tissues and 

 germinal matter likewise, but an alkaline solution of carmine 

 passes freely through the former to the latter, and stains 

 it so decidedly that the colour is not removed by glycerine 

 washing. 



We are convinced that Dr. Beale' s researches will be the 

 more highly appreciated the more completely and fairly they 

 are tested ; but an unscientific mode of reasoning sometimes 

 tends to cast his substantial merits into the shade. In some 

 passages he seems to take pains to stand as low as a 

 reasoner as he is high as an observer, and he is singularly 

 dogmatic where he is most likely to be wrong. When he 

 tells us that vital power is not a manifestation of any 

 known force, and that, though it is manifested under 

 certain conditions, it does not result from those condi- 

 tions, we want, in the first place, to know exactly what he 

 means. Nor are we much helped when we are told that which. 

 is incorrect, namely, that " ordinary force seems for the most 

 part to affect only the surface of masses," while " vital power 

 acts from the very centre of the most minute particle." The 

 most " ordinary force" we are acquainted with is gravitation, 

 and it would much astonish Airey and Herschel to learn that 

 it only " seems to affect the surface of masses." Heat and 

 magnetism are also ordinary forces, and we fancy Faraday 

 and Tyndall would scarcely agree with Dr. Beale that they 

 only affect surfaces. When a force is said to act under certain 

 conditions, but not to result from those conditions, the state- 

 ment may be correct if made with suitable reservations. 

 We believe it is so, for example, when mental and moral 

 force — thought and emotion — are exerted by man under the 

 conditions of physical mortal life ; but we decline, in the 

 absence of evidence to that effect, to regard every process 

 of growth in the humblest living cell as resulting from a 

 force totally distinct from all the chemical and physical con- 

 ditions under which the growth proceeds. Dr. Beale asserts 

 that no one has proved that, when living matter dies, any kind 

 of force is set free. If no force were set free, we should have 

 a unique instance of annihilation, and this Dr. Beale seems to 

 imagine concerning a force that he regards as superior to all 

 the physical forces which " change, but cannot die." 



