SCIENCE. 
r 1 8 
plant ; 2d, that hence the solution of the life-question in the 
Myxomycetes will solve the life-problem for the highest 
vertebrate. 
Another consideration which must not be left out of the 
account in any discussion of the life-question is the potent 
influence of environment. Ordinary examples of this in- 
fluence pass before our eyes every day. Heat necessitates 
the germination of the seed, and light causes the plant to 
grow. Gravity obliges its root to grow downward and its 
stem to ascend. Certain sensations from without excite in- 
evitably muscular contraction ; and a ludicrous idea may 
provoke laughter in defiance of the will. Epidemic and 
epizootic diseases show the dependence of function upon 
external conditions, and the germ theory demonstrates the 
utter disproportionality of the cause to the effect. The re- 
markable similarity in the periodicity observed between sun- 
spots and the weather has been extended to include the ap- 
pearance of locusts and the advent of the plague. Even the 
body politic feels its influence, [evons having established a 
coincident periodicity for commercial crises. 
The modern theory of energy, however, puts this influ- 
ence in a still stronger light. As defined hitherto, energy 
is either motion or position ; is kinetic or potential. En- 
ergy of position derives its value obviously from the fact 
that in virtue of attraction it may become energy of motion. 
But attraction implies action at a distance ; and action at a 
distance implies that matter may act where it is not. This 
of course is impossible ; and hence action at a distance, and 
with it attraction and potential energy, are disappearing 
from the language of science. But what conception is it 
which is taking its place? By what action does the sun 
hold our earth in its orbit ? The answer is to be found in 
the properties of the ether which fills all space. The ex- 
istence of this ether, the phenomena of light and electricity 
abundantly prove. While so tenuous that Astronomy has 
been taxed to prove that it exerts an appreciable resist- 
tance upon the least of the celestial bodies, its elasticity is 
such that its transmits a compression with a well nigh in- 
finite velocity. On the one hand, Thomson has deter- 
mined its inferior limit, and finds that a cubic mile of it 
would weigh only one thousand-millionth of a pound ; on 
the other, Herschel has calculated that, if an amount of it 
equal in weight to a cubic inch of air be enclosed in a cubic 
inch of space, its reaction outward would be upward of 
seventeen billions of pounds. Instead of being represented 
as is our air, by the pressure of a homogeneous atmosphere 
fiye miles in height, such a pressure would represent just 
such a homogeneous atmosphere five and a half billions of 
miles high, or about one-third the distance to the nearest 
fixed star ! In Herschel’s own words : “ Do what we will, 
adopt what hypothesis we please, there is no escape in 
dealing with the phenomena of light, from these gigantic 
numbers, or from the conception of enormous physical 
force in perpetual exertion at every point throughout all 
the immensity of space.” 
Now, as Preston has suggested, if we regard this ether as 
a gas, defined by the kinetic theory that its molecules move 
in straight lines, but with an enormous length of free path, 
it is obvious that this ether may be clearly conceived of as 
the source of all the motions of ordinary matter. It is an 
enormous storehouse of energy, which is continually pass- 
ing to and from ordinary matter, precisely as we know it to 
do in the case of radiant transmission. Before so simple a 
conception as this, both potential energy and action at a 
distance are easily given up. All energy is kinetic energy, 
the energy of motion. In a narrower sense, the energy of 
matter-motion is ordinary kinetic energy ; the energy of 
ether-motion, which may become matter-motion, fills the 
conception of the older potential energy. Giving now to 
the ether its storehouse of tremendous power, and giving 
to it the ability to transfer this power to ordinary matter 
upon opportunity, and we have an environment compared 
with which the strongest steel is but the breath of the sum- 
mer air. In presence of such an energy it is that we live 
and move. In the midst of such tremendous power do we 
act. Is it a wonder that out of such a reservoir the power 
by which we live should irresistibly rush into the organism 
and appear as the transmuted energy which we recognize 
in the phenomena of life? Truly, as Spinoza has put it, 
“ Man thinks himself most free when he is most a slave.” 
Such now are some of the facts and fancies to be found 
in the science of to-day concerning the phenomena of life. 
Physiologically considered, life has no mysterious pass- 
ages, no sacred precincts into which the unhallowed foot 
of science may not enter. Research has steadily diminish- 
ed day by day the phenomena supposed vital. Physiology 
is daily assuming more and more the character of an ap- 
plied science. Every action performed by the living body 
is sooner or later to be pronounced chemical or physical. 
And when the last vestige of the vital principle shall dis- 
appear, the word “ Life,” if it remain at all, will remain to 
us only to signify, as a collective term, the sum of the phe- 
nomena exhibited by an active organized or organic being. 
I cannot close without speaking a single word in favor 
of a vigorous development in this country of physiological 
research. What has already been done among us has been 
well done. I have said with diffidence what I have said in 
this address, because I see around me those who have 
made these subjects the study of their lives, and who are 
far more competent to discuss them than I am. But the la- 
borers in the field are all too few, and the reasons therefor 
are not far to seek. One of these undoubtedly is the high 
scientific attainment necessary to a successful prosecution 
of this kind of investigation. The physiological student 
must be a physicist, a chemist, an anatomist and a physiol- 
ogist all at once. Again, the course of instruction of 
those who might fairly be expected to enter upon this work 
— the medical students of the country — is directed toward 
making them practitioners rather than investigators. In 
the third place the importance of physiological studies in 
connection with zoological research is only beginning in 
this country to receive the share of attention it deserves. 
I well remember the gratification I experienced in 1873 
upon receiving a letter from Professor Louis Agassiz, ask- 
ing me to give some lectures at Penikese upon physiologi- 
cal chemistry ; a new departure for those times. In this 
view of the case it seems very appropriate that a new sub- 
section of this Association should be just now in process of 
formation. We welcome warmly the body of men who form 
it, and we predict that from the new subsection of Anatomy 
and Physiology most valuable contributions will be re- 
ceived for our proceedings. 
It is a beautiful conception of science which regards the 
energy which is manifested on the earth as having its origin 
in the sun. Pulsating awhile in the ether-molecules which 
fill the intervening space, this motion reaches our earth 
and communicates its tremor to the molecules of its matter. 
Instantly all starts into life. The winds move, the waters 
rise and fall, the lightnings flash and the thunders roll, all 
as subdivisions of this received power. The muscle of the 
fleeing animal transforms it in escaping from the hunter 
who seeks to use it for the purpose of his destruction. 
The wave that runs along that tiny nerve-thread to apprise 
us of danger transmutes it, and the return pulse that re- 
moves us from its presence is a portion of it. The groan 
of the weary, the shriek of the tortured, the voic6d agony 
of the babeless mother, all borrow their significance from 
the same source. The magnificence of the work of a Leo- 
nardo da Vinci or a Michael Angelo ; the divine creations 
of a Beethovan or a Mozart ; the immortal Principia of a 
Newton and the Mechanique Celeste of a Laplace — all 
had their existence at some point of time in oscillations of 
ether in the intersolar space. But all this energy is only 
a transitory possession. As the sunlight gilds the moun- 
tain top and then glances off again into space, so this 
energy touches upon and beautifies our earth and then 
speeds on its way. What other worlds it reaches and vivi- 
fies, we may never know. Beyond the veil of the seen, 
science may not penetrate. But religion, more hopeful, 
seeks there for the new heavens and the new earth, wherein 
shall be solved the problems of a higher life. 
The recent artificial production of the diamond is closely 
followed by an interesting synthesis, by M. de Schulten, re- 
sulting in the mineral analcine. On heating a solution of 
silicate of soda or caustic soda, in presence of an alumi- 
nous glass, to a temperature of igo° C. (374° F.) in a closed 
vessel, during forty-eight hours, small but very perfect 
transparent crystals, imbedded in gelatinous silica, were 
formed on the walls of the tube. They answer in every 
respect to the mineralogical characteristics of analcites. 
