280 PROFESSOR LIONEL S. BEALE, F.R.C.P., F.R.S._, ON THE 



upon life-power which at present iindemonstratable, was derived 

 from ah^eady existing life-power. 



What happens to, or becomes of the life, when a living 

 particle dies, has never been ascertained. No law explains it. 

 Life comes from life, and it cannot be included among any forces 

 or properties of matter. At death, life leaves matter without 

 passing on to any other matter, or assuming any other form 

 whatever. Life never arises anew. The same matter lives and 

 dies, but the products resulting from its death, cannot be caused 

 to live again, unless they are dissolved, and then taken up by 

 living matter which imparts to them life-power. Life after life, 

 series after series, of organisms have been as it were usinjr and 

 animating the same matter. As age has followed age, millions 

 of different forms of life have animated atoms which die and 

 may be animated over and over again by other living particles. 

 The life, not the matter, is therefore the individual living 

 creature or particle, for many of the same atoms may have 

 helped to form the temporary abode of unnumbered individuals, 

 differing widely from one another in nature and power. 



I have shown many friends a fortunate preparation of very 

 delicate peripheral nerve-fibres which could be traced without 

 interruption over a considerable area of very thin tissue (young 

 frog's bladder, Mylo-hyoid muscle of green tree frog). My 

 friend sees and traces network after network without a break, 

 and sees the bioplasts connected with the fibres. He admits 

 the continuity of many of the finest fibres with dark bordered 

 nerve fibres. We quite agree as to the facts demonstrated in 

 the specimen. But to get my friend to think of what such a 

 specimen proves, and the mode of its formation, the growth, 

 structure and action of this very small part of the nervous 

 system which he sees, and to get him to consider how nerve- 

 action is performed in the living animal, or say, over the whole 

 surface of the bladder, or of a muscle, seems most difficult. 

 No doubt in thinking over what he has seen, the hard black 

 representations illustrating nerve-distribution in text books on 

 minute anatomy ha^•e strongly impressed him, and as well as 

 the hard wire-like pictures of the soft delicate nerves of 

 nature, have rendered it difficult for him to form an idea of the 

 actual nature and importance of the soft moist transparent 

 nerve-tissues and the countless bioplasts he sees. The 

 specimens referred to have been preserved without change 

 since the preparation was first spread out flat in preservative 

 fluid, and ultimately in strong glycerine or syrup, and the 

 excessively thin cover-glass applied, forty or fifty years ago. 



