Address delivered before The Royal Microscopical Society, at the anniversary meeting, Feb. 9, 1870 / by J.B. Reade.

  • Joseph Bancroft Reade
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address delivered before The Royal Microscopical Society, at the anniversary meeting, Feb. 9, 1870 / by J.B. Reade. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    may hope that the lapse of twelve years gives additional force to the following words of our own first President in his Address at the Leeds meeting of the British Association:—“ The microscope is an indis- pensable instrument in emhryological and histological researches, as also in reference to that vast swarm of animalcules which are too minute for ordinary vision. I can here do little more than allude to the systematic direction now given to the application of the microscope to particular tissues and particular classes, chiefly due in this country to the counsels and example of the Microscopical Society of London.” At our meeting in April, Dr. Beale, treading on the very con- fines of the limit of human knowledge, brought a question before us which may very easily be answered on the ground of speculation, yet all but unanswerable on the basis of truth. What is Proto- jplasm ] and, What is Life In consequence of the penumbra of diametrically opposite definitions, Dr. Beale rejects the word Proto- plasm, so much in favour with metaphysical physicists, and he enables us to look on at the battle of the giants vigorously destroying each other’s theories hut failing to establish their own. In propounding his own views concerning the matter of living beings, Dr. Beale restricts himself to the simple and expressive terms, germinal matter and formed matter. The former is possessed of vital pro- perties, and the latter of material properties only. The rather striking difference between dead and living matter seems to justify the rejection of a term which is indiscriminately applied to masses of living things and dead things, and to warrant the use of other terms which are free from the mysteriousness of protoplasm, and which properly indicate matter existing in two very different states, living and formed. Then, as to the question. What is Life ? This much we know, on the highest authority, that Life is the direct gift of the Creator to the living creatures of His hands, and for perfect knowledge we must wait for the perfect day, when “ we shall know even as also we are known.” Meanwhile, the conscientious observer is amply justified in investigating the Law of Life as well as the Law of Gravitation, telling us, as it may seem to him, wdiat it is and how it acts; and if he advance no farther than a plausible hypothesis, he may thereby direct us Truth-ward though he reach not the goal himself. We can place no limit to legitimate inquiry, nor refuse a hearty reception of well-established facts. At the same time let us hear this in mind, Humanum est errare, and it may be that universal error is received as practical truth,—but truth is not error for all that. In the discussion of an allied subject, Mr. Staniland Wake strongly supports the view that the connection between the initial phases of animal and vegetable life is more fundamental than has