ONSEEN LIFE OF OUR WORLD AND OF LIVING GROWTH. 138 



physical or chemical, and what known facts, or scientific 

 opinions, arguments or reasons based on research, in any 

 department of living nature or of physical science, can be 

 advanced, whicli would justify an unprejudiced student of 

 Physiology or Biology in defending the contention, that man 

 cannot in reason, from a scientific point of view, be in any 

 sense regarded as " the child of God," or as " an inheritor of the 

 kingdom of heaven " ; for is not man the only living being who 

 knoiving God, can pray and worship ? 



Discussion. 



The Chairman. — I am sure we have all listened with the deepest 

 interest to this Paper (hear, hear), and we shall read it with the 

 greatest interest when printed. 



It is most important that we should bear in mind this one funda- 

 mental point which underlies this valuable paper — that life springs 

 from the living and not from the non-living. It is true that there 

 is a great deal of loose talking about it. So with growth, we may 

 speak of the growth of a crystal, and no great harm is done if we 

 recollect that we are using the word in an inaccurate sense and so, 

 in many cases, we get into a way of using words figuratively, and 

 then supposing we have proved a thing ; and I believe figures of 

 speech, by way of illustration, to have been amongst some of the 

 most fatal sources of error in scientific study. We use the word 

 " life " in an inaccurate sense, but we must come back to those 

 points which Professor Beale (and perhaps he is better qualified to 

 speak than any man in England on these physiological questions) 

 forces on our attention, that the living, though even a minute 

 fraction, perhaps, of what we call living, contains in that minute 

 fraction the secret not only of life itself, but all individual life. The 

 charm of studying organisms led many to suppose, when I was a 

 student, that in organization is the secret of life, whereas in life is 

 the secret of organization. (Hear, hear.) 



* As Dr. Beale has himself explained, the growth of a living object is 

 from within ; the "growth " of a crystal is by accretion from without. — Ed. 



