UNSEEN LIFE OF OUR WORLD AND OF LIVING GROWTH. 135 



as he represented them, perfectly true. There was one drawing in 

 his book that I remember well was open to grave suspicion. He 

 represented germinal matter, spinning a fil^re of muscle, much as 

 a spider does his thread. But in the course of my research I came 

 upon this very object. If anything, it was more clearly marked 

 than the one illustrated in Professor Beale's book. It is a most 

 important discovery, and it is impossible for us to estimate its 

 value. If you take the whole of Professor Huxley's discoveries 

 together they will not equal that one discovery, and yet nothing 

 is thought of it on account of the wrong-headed attitude which 

 men of science entertain towards this great subject. Let me say 

 that there is a change of opinion. Herbert Spencer, in the last 

 edition of his Biology^ gives up generally, the chemical theory of 

 life, and says it is an enigma. 



It may be slow, but the time will come when Professor Beale's 

 views will be accepted. It has taken a whole century for hypnotism 

 to be admitted, as it is to-day, to be a potent influence and power 

 in mind. All this is very useful to be brought before the 

 Institute, and I hope it will tend towards a victory for Truth and 

 for the Bible. 



The only explanation of life which we have is the one that is 

 given to us in the Book of Genesis where it says, " And the Spirit 

 of God moved upon the face of the waters." The Hebrew word 

 there is a participle expressing continuity and intensity of vitalizing 

 action. 



Rev. a. K. Cherrill. — Professor Beale has given us so much, 

 that I cannot help feeling inclined, like a certain well-known 

 character in fiction, to send up my plate and ask for " more " ! 



There are two points on which I would like to ask him a question — 

 first, as to the structureless matter of life of which he has spoken. 

 Are we to understand that what he refers to is actually structureless, 

 or that we are unable to discover the structure 1 In his description 

 of the commencement of life he speaks of most elaborate structure, 

 and it is difficult to see how this very elaborate structure can come 

 out of no structure at all. 



Mr. Martin Rouse. — I was going to ask Professor Beale to 

 reassure us, or to reassert, in terms that escaped me, whether the 

 growth of matter within a cell was all performed within the cell — 

 whether the whole growth takes place within the cell ? 



K 



