Address of the President. 
21 
of research, as the means by which alone, in this, as in every 
other branch of scientific inquiry, can any really good results 
be attained. 
I hope that I shall not be supposed desirous of trumpeting 
the merits of my own production, if I say that in the ' Manual 
of the Microscope,' which I have just brought to a conclusion, 
I have especially aimed, on the one hand, to put the young 
microscopist in possession of what it is most essential that he 
should know at starting, on each of the most important topics 
to which his attention may be directed ; and on the other, to 
point out how much remains to be known, and to guide him 
into the path of research which he may follow with the great- 
est likelihood of beneficial results. And I cannot point to a 
better example of the advantage to be derived from the steady 
devotion of the attention to a definite object, than is presented 
by the admirable contributions which have been made during 
the last year by Mr. Wenham, to two most important depart- 
ments of vegetable physiology ; especially by his memoir on 
Vegetable Cell Development, which appears in the last part 
of our Transactions (Jan. 1856). To this I shall presently have 
occasion to make particular reference ; and I shall now only 
remark, that I look upon it as one of the most important 
rectifications which the current doctrines of this science have 
ever received ; and that, although the product of one who 
must be considered an amateur rather than a professor of 
science, it would, in my opinion, do credit to the most accom- 
plished physiologist. I should have hesitated, perhaps, at 
pinning my faith upon Mr. Wenham's statements, had it not 
been for two circumstances which have had a powerful influ- 
ence with me : in the first place, the care in observing, and 
accuracy in recording, of which Mr. Wenham's previous 
paper on the ' Rotation of Sap in Yegetable-cells ' gave satis- 
factory evidence ; and secondly, the coincidence of the results 
of Mr. Wenham's researches and conclusions, with those 
towards which many recent inquiries on the history of cell- 
development seem to me to converge. 
It is of great importance to the progress of any department 
of Science, that we should from time to time review the 
state of our knowledge on those fundamental questions which 
affect its condition and aspect ; and it appears to me that the 
time is now come, when we must take such a review of the 
Cell-theory of Sclileiden and Schwann, in its relation to 
Vegetable and Animal Physiology. To such a review I pro- 
pose now to lead you : it must necessarily, from the briefness 
of the space at our command, be a very cursory one ; but I 
venture to hope that I may succeed in so placing before you 
