202 
be unhesitatingly received. He would refer to such inquiries 
as Dr. Hincks’s on the conversion of the protoplasm of the 
volvox into free moving Amoebse and to those of Dr. Balbiani 
on the sexuality of the Polygastrica, as illustrations. These 
researches require re-examination and further confirmation ; 
and whilst the latter would give the results attained a fixed 
place in scientific annals, their rejection, should they prove 
erroneous, would remove stumbling blocks out of the way. 
In fact, all discoveries required careful re-investigation. 
Observers were often too sanguine, and drew large 
inductions from small and defective data, and this work of 
supervision was one in which our members might successfully 
engage. He also thought it desirable to warn the members 
against the contracting tendencies of minute microscopic 
research as opposed to philosophic breadth. If men limit 
their ambition to resolving the small markings of diatoms 
apart from the great physiological questions to which they 
bear relation, they will inevitably succumb to this paralysing 
influence. They must be careful not to lose themselves in 
the mere examination of details, but to keep in view that 
the discovery of general laws should be their object, to the 
attainment of which the former was only a means. Mere 
details were useful, but to limit our attention to them 
crippled the intellect, and rendered it unable to combine them 
and trace out their connection with general laws. It was by 
keeping the attention fixed on this higher object that placed 
our most distinguished histologists on the pedestals they now 
occupy — and, as it is the duty of every man to do what he 
does in the best manner he can, it behoves all members to 
keep this lofty aim carefully in view. 
The results would then not only advance science and 
benefit their fellow-men, but, if worldly fame were their 
object, they would reap it in the fullest measure to which 
they were entitled. 
