UNSEEN LIFE OF OUR WORLD AND OF LIVING GROWTH. Ill 



ment, universal in living nature, and characteristic of all the 

 living matter known in this world ; but not of any other kind, 

 state or condition of matter yet discovered, or to be made by 

 any process known to science. For this short time only, have 

 we possessed the required instruments, and other means of 

 studying the great problems of life and living growth, such as 

 very high magnifying powers with excellent definition, and 

 more successful methods of minute research, than were at 

 he command of our predecessors of the early part of the nine- 

 teenth century. Recently many new and important facts have 

 been ascertained, and we have been able even to realize to some 

 extent the changes which probaldy occur during living growth, 

 and those which result in the formation of tissue-structure, by 

 particles of living matter in man, animals and plants, and in 

 some living organisms of extreme minuteness, all of which have 

 been formed from and by living matter only. 



I have already had the privilege of bringing before the mem- 

 bers of the Yictoria Institute several points of interest bearing on 

 the general question of the nature of the unseen life, and when, 

 and precisely where, lifeless matter becomes living, and have 

 endeavoured to ascertain exactly what happens, when, from 

 living matter, structures and substances are evolved, having 

 wonderful properties and arranged in a manner not to be 

 imitated, or produced artificially, or by means other than by 

 life. Transactions of the Victoria Institute, vols, xxix; xxxi, 

 p. 218 ; xxxii, p. 337 ; xxxiii, p. 52 ; and xxxiv, p. 216. 



Last year I ventured to draw attention to a broad fact of 

 general application to the whole life-world, to which I do not 

 think there is one single exception — the fact of the presence of 

 a large proportion of water in all classes of living organisms and 

 at every period of life. This fact in my opinion is established 

 not only in regard of everything and every particle that is 

 actually alive, but is also true of everything that lived in the 

 past, or that will live in future time, as long as life shall exist 

 on this earth. The idea of life, in my mind, is invariably 

 associated with water ; water as it seems to me being the first 

 necessity ; life could not have existed before water. To con- 

 sider therefore what sort of life may exist in the stars and suns 

 and other infinitely distant heavenly bodies, and in cosmic 

 vapour is surely needless. Cadit ciucstio. 



Multitudes of the most minute and wonderful of living things 

 in living nature, tiie Protozoa, consist almost wholly of water. 

 They increase and multiply at a great rate, and some will live 

 even in distilled water, and when the water evaporates scarcely 



