14 



OBITUARY NOTICES. 



rest at the age of eighty-four. The last occasion on which I 

 met niy friend was that on which he had come np to London 

 to be present at the unveihng of the statue of Huxley, now 

 standing in the hall of the Natural History Museum, South 

 Kensington. 



I'ROFESSOR Lionel S. Beale, M.B., and F.R.C.P.Lond. and F.R.S. 



Aniono'st the most distinc^uished of our memljers whose 

 death we have to deplore was Professor Lionel Smith Beale, who 

 died on the 28th March last at the age of seventy-eight. A very 

 full and interesting obituary of l*rofessor Beale appears in the 

 Lancet of the 7tli April in which his remarkalde career is 

 described ; but it is to be regretted that no mention is made of 

 his connection with the Victoria Institute, in which for several 

 years past he had taken a great interest, l)ecoming one of its 

 Vice-Presidents, contributing papers, and often presiding at its 

 meetings. It therefore becomes the more necessary tliat the 

 relationship of Dr. Beale to the Institute should be here 

 recorded. Dr. Beale was one of the pioneers in the application 

 of the microscope to the study of the minute forms of living- 

 organisms, a study which has been so widely extended in our 

 day. From his entrance as a student in King's College at an 

 early age till the year 1850-51, when he was elected Kesident 

 Physician to King's CJoUege Hospital, and onwards, the 

 microscope was his constant companion in investigating the 

 action and liabits of micro-organisms ; and in determining the 

 nature of vital, as distinguislied from purely mechanical, force. 

 The result of these long-extended oljservations was to convince 

 Dr. Beale of tlie al)solute dilTerence between life and non-life ; 

 and he opposed with all his powers the view of those who 

 sought to explain the mysteries of life as the outcome of 

 physico-chemical laws. In tlie words of the al)le writer in the 

 Lancet, though in his attacks on " Atlieism," "Materialism,' 

 " Agnosticism," " Monism " and " Fi'ee Thought " In's own position 

 was scarcely dellned with suthcient clearness, yet in one of 

 his papers on " Vitahty " he stated the following conclusions, in 

 accordance with minute investigations and natural knowledge, 

 which may be taken to sum u]) his ])osition : " 1. That ours is 

 the only life-world at this time known. 2. I'hat all living 

 matter is, and has ever been, absolutely distinct from all non- 

 living matter ; and .*). That the diflerences between man and 

 all other organisms in natures are absolut(\" With reference to 

 the hi si of tliose conclusions it should be ol)served that 



