the opinion generally prevailed among chemists and physiologists that there was some great and fundamental difference in the chemical phenomena and laws of organic and inorganic nature. Now, however, this supposed barrier has been in a great measure broken down and removed, and chemists, with almost one accord, regard the laws of combination of the elements as essentially the same in both classes of bodies, whatever differences may exist in actual composition, or in the reactions of organic bodies in the more complex and often obscure conditions of vitality, as compared with the simpler and, on the whole, better known phenomena of a chemical nature observed in the mineral kingdom. Thus, by the synthetic method, there have been formed among the simpler organic compounds a great number of alcohols, hydrocarbons, and fatty acids. But the most remarkable example of the synthetic formation of an organic compound is that of the alkaloid conia, as recently obtained by Hugo Schiff by certain reactions from butyric aldehyde, itself an artificial product. The substance so formed, and its compounds, possess all the properties of the natural conia-chemical, physical, and physiological-being equally poisonous with it. The colouring-matter of madder, or alizarine, is another organic compound which has been formed by artificial processes. It is true that the organized or containing solid, either of vegetable or animal bodies, has not as yet yielded to the ingenuity of chemical artifice; nor, indeed, is the actual composition of one of the most important of these, albumen and its allies, fully known. But as chemists have only recently begun to discover the track by which they may be led to the synthesis of organic compounds, it is warrantable to hope that ere long cellulose and lignine may be formed; and, great as the difficulties with regard to the albumenoid compounds may at present appear, the synthetic formation of these is by no means to be despaired of, but, on the contrary, may with confidence be expected to crown their efforts. From all recent research, therefore, it appears to result that the general nature of the properties belonging to the products of animal and vegetable life can no longer be regarded as different from those of minerals, in so far at least as they are the subject of chemical and physical investigation. The union of elements and their separation, whether occurring in an animal, a vegetable, or a mineral body, must be looked upon as dependent on innate powers or properties belonging to the elements themselves; and the phenomena of change of composition of organic bodies occurring in the living state are not the less chemical because they are different from those observed in inorganic nature. All chemical actions are liable to vary according to the conditions in which they occur; and many instances might be adduced of most remarkable variations of this kind, observed in the chemistry of dead bodies from very slight changes of electrical, calorific, mechanical, and other conditions. But because the conditions of action or change are infinitely more complex and far less known in living bodies, it is not necessary to look upon the phenomena as essentially of a different kind, to have recourse to the hypothesis of vital affinities, and still less to shelter ourselves under the slim curtain of ignorance implied in the explanation of the most varied chemical changes by the influence of a vital principle.

On the subjects of zoological and botanical classification and anthropology, it would be out of place for me now to make any observations at length. I will only remark, in regard to the first, that the period now under review has witnessed a very great modification in the aspect in which the affinities of the bodies belonging to these two great kingdoms of nature are viewed by naturalists, and the principles on which groups of bodies in each are associated together in systematic classification; for, in the first place, the older view has been abandoned that the complication of structure rises in a continually increasing and continuous gradation from one kingdom to the other, or extends in one line, as it were, from group to group in either of the kingdoms separately. Evolution into a gradually increasing complexity of structure and function no doubt exists in both, so that types or general plans of formation must be acknowledged to exist, presenting typical resemblances of the deepest interest; but in the progress of morphological research it has become more and more apparent that the different groups form radiations, which touch one another at certain points of greatest resemblance, rather than one continuous line, or a number of lines which partially pass each other.

The

simpler bodies of the two kingdoms of nature exhibit a gradually increasing resemblance to each other, until at last the differences between them wholly disappear, and we reach a point of contact at which the properties become almost indistinguishable, as in the remarkable Protista of Haeckel and others. I fully agree, however, with the view stated by Professor Wyville Thomson in his recent introductory lecture, that it is not necessary on this account to recognize, with Haeckel, a third or intermediate kingdom of nature. Each kingdom presents, as it were, a radiating expansion into groups for itself, so that the relations of the two kingdoms might be represented by the divergence of lines spreading in two different directions from a common point. Recent observations on the chorda dorsalis, or supposed notochord, of some Ascidians, tend to revive the discussion, at one time prevalent, but long in abeyance, as to the possibility of tracing an homology between the vertebrate and invertebrate animals; and, should this correspondence be confirmed and extended, it may be expected to modify greatly our present views of zoological affinities and classification. It will also be an additional proof of the importance of minute and embryological research in systematic determinations. The recognition of homological resemblance of animals, to which in this country the researches of Owen and Huxley have contributed so largely, form one of the most interesting subjects of contemplation in the study of comparative anatomy and zoology in our time; but I must refrain from touching on so seductive and difficult a subject.

There is another topic to which I can refer with pleasure as connected with the cultivation of biological knowledge in this country, and that is the introduction of instruction in natural science into the system of education of our schools. As to the feasibility of this in the primary schools, I believe most of those who are intimately acquainted with their management have expressed a decidedly favourable opinion-it being found that a portion of the time now allotted to the three great requisites of a primary education might with advantage be set apart, for the purpose of instructing the pupils in subjects of common interest, calculated to awaken in their minds a desire for knowledge of the various objects presented by the field of nature around them. As to the benefit which may result from this measure to the persons so instructed, it is scarcely necessary for me to say anything in this place. It is so obvious that any varied knowledge, however easily acquired or elementary, which tends to enlarge the range of observation and thought, must have some effect in removing its recipients from grosser influences, and may even supply information which may prove useful in social economy and in the occupations of labour. Nor need I point out how much more extended the advantages of such instruction may prove if introduced into the system of our secondary schools, and more freely combined than heretofore with the too exclusively literary and philosophical study which has so long prevailed in the approved British education. Without disparagement to those modes of study as in themselves necessary and useful, and excellent means of disciplining the mind to learning, I cannot but hold it as certain that the mind which is entirely without scientific cultivation is but half prepared for the common purposes of modern life, and is entirely unqualified for forming a judgment on some of the most difficult and yet most common and important questions of the day, affecting the interests of the whole community. I refer with pleasure to the published Essay of Dr. Lankester on this subject, and to the argunients addressed two days ago by Dr. Bennett to the medical graduates of the University, in favour of the establishment of physiology as a subject of general education in this country with reference to sanitary conditions. It is gratifying, therefore, to perceive that the suggestions made some years ago in regard to this subject by the British Association, through its committee, have already borne good fruit, and that the attention of those who preside over education in this country, as well as of the public themselves, is more earnestly directed to the object of securing for the lowest as well as the highest classes of the community that wholesome combination of knowledge derived from education, which will duly cultivate all the faculties of the mind, and thus fit a greater and greater number for applying themselves with increased ability and knowledge to the purposes of their living and its improved condition. If the law of the survival of the fittest be applicable to the mental as well as to the physical improvement

of our race (and who can doubt that in some measure it must be so?), we are bound by motives of interest and duty to secure for all classes of the people that kind of education which will lead to the development of the highest and most varied mental power. And no one who has been observant of the recent progress of the useful arts and its influence upon the moral, social, and political condition of our population, can doubt that such education must include instruction in the phenomena of external nature, including, more especially, the laws and conditions of life and health; and that it ought to be, at the same time, such as will adapt the mind to the ready acquisition and just comprehension of varied knowledge. It is obvious, too, that while this more immediately useful or beneficial effect on the common mind may be produced by the diffusion of natural knowledge among the people, biological science will share in the gain accruing to all branches of natural science, by the greater favour which will be accorded to its cultivators, and the increased freedom from prejudice with which their statements are received and considered by learned as well as by unscientific persons.

I cannot conclude these observations without adverting to one aspect in which it may be thought that the appreciation of biological science has taken a retrograde rather than an advanced position. In this, I do not mean to refer to the special cultivators of biology in its scientific acceptation, but to the fact that there appears to have taken place of late a considerable increase in the number of persons who believe, or who imagine that they believe, in the class of phenomena which are now called spiritual, but which have been known, since the exhibitions of Mesmer, and, indeed, long before his time, under the most varied forms, as liable to occur in persons of an imaginative turn of mind and peculiar nervous susceptibility. It is to be regretted that a number of persons devote a large share of their time to the practice (for it does not deserve the name of study or investigation) of the alleged phenomena, and that a few men of acknowledged reputation in some departments of science have lent their names, and surrendered their judgment, to the countenance and attempted authentication of the delusive dreams of the practitioners of spiritualism, and similar chimerical hypotheses. The natural tendency to a belief in the marvellous is sufficient to explain the ready acceptance of such views by the ignorant; and it is not improbable that a higher species of similar credulity may frequently act with persons of greater cultivation, should their scientific information and training have been of a partial kind. It must be admitted, further, that extremely curious and rare and, to those who are not acquainted with the nervous functions, apparently marvellous phenomena, present themselves in peculiar states of the nervous system-some of which states may be induced through the mind and may be made more and more liable to recur, and to be greatly exaggerated by frequent repetition. But making the fullest allowance for all these conditions, it is still surprising that persons, otherwise appearing not to be irrational, should entertain a confirmed belief in the possibility of phenomena, which, while they are at variance with the best established physical laws, have never been brought under proof by the evidences of the senses, and are opposed to the dictates of sound judgment. It is so far satisfactory, in the interests of true biological science, that no man of note can be named from the long list of thoroughly well-informed anatomists and physiologists, who has not treated the belief in the separate existence of powers of animal magnetism and spiritualism as wild speculations, devoid of all foundation in the carefully tested observation of facts. It has been the habit of the votaries of the systems to which I have referred to assert that scientific men have neglected or declined to investigate the phenomena with attention and candour; but nothing can be further from the truth than this statement. Not to mention the admirable reports of the early French academicians, giving the account of the negative result of an examination of the earlier mesmeric phenomena by men in every way qualified to pronounce judgment on their nature, I am aware that from time to time men of eminence, and fully competent, by their knowledge of biological phenomena, and their skill and accuracy in conducting scientific investigation, have made the most patient and careful examination of the evidence placed before them by the professed believers and practitioners of so-called mesmeric, magnetic, phrenomagnetic, electrobiological, and other like phenomena; and the result has been uniformly the same in all cases when they

were permitted to secure conditions by which the reality of the phenomena, or the justice of their interpretation, could be tested, viz. either that, on the one hand, the phenomena were not essentially different from those well known to physiologists as modifications of the nervous and muscular functions under peculiar mental states; or that, on the other hand, the experiments signally failed to educe the results professed, or that the experimenters were detected in shameless and determined impostures. I have myself been fully convinced of this by repeated examinations; and I can scarcely doubt that the same fate awaits the fair scientific examination of the so-called spiritualistic phenomena. But were any guarantee required for the care, soundness, and efficiency of the judgment of men of science on such phenomena and views, I have only to mention, in the first place, the revered name of Faraday, and in the next that of my life-long friend Dr. Sharpey, whose ability and candour none will dispute, and who, I am happy to think, is here among us, ready, from his past experience of such exhibitions, to bear his testimony against all cases of levitation, or the like, which may be the last wonder of the day among the mesmeric or spiritual pseudo-physiologists. The phenomena to which I have at present referred are in great part dependent upon natural principles of the human mind, placed, as it would appear, in dangerous alliance with certain tendencies of the nervous system. They ought not to be worked upon without the greatest caution, and they can only be fully understood by the accomplished physiologist who is also conversant with healthy and morbid psychology. The experience of the last hundred years tends to show that, while there are always to be found persons peculiarly liable to exhibit the phenomena in question, there will also exist a certain number of minds prone to adopt a belief in the marvellous and striking in preference to that which is easily understood and patent to the senses; but it may be confidently expected that the diffusion of a fuller and more accurate knowledge of physiology among the non-scientific classes of the community may lead to a juster appreciation of the phenomena in question, and a reduction of the number among them who are believers in scientific impossibilities.

On some new Experiments relating to the Origin of Life.
By Dr. CHARLTON BASTIAN, F.R.S.

On the Action of Heat on Germ-life. By F. CRACE-CALVERT, F.R.S. The question of building ovens for disinfecting purposes, gives the subject of this paper more than a merely scientific interest, as it thus becomes one of great practical importance. As it is found that certain forms of life can exist when exposed to a temperature equal to that at which the charring of organic matter commences, it is unsafe to assume that the particular forms of life which propagate certain forms of disease will be destroyed below this temperature. As from the nature of the case stoving can only be partially applicable, and as it is at present not proved effective where it is applicable, it is unadvisable to spend public money until a greater degree of certainty is arrived at.

The experiments described were not, however, undertaken with an intention of influencing the settlement of this question, but were part of a series on the question of putrefaction and the development of life.

It has hitherto been assumed by the advocates of the theory of spontaneous generation, that a temperature of 212° Fahr., or the boiling-point of the fluid operated on, was sufficient to destroy all protoplasmic life, and that any life subsequently observed in such fluids must have been developed from non-living

matter.

* In consequence of several remonstrances made to me since the address was delivered, representing that the phenomena of spiritualism had not yet been subjected to a full scientific investigation, I have been induced to alter the two preceding sentences from their original into their present form. But I am still of opinion that these phenomena belong essentially to the same class as those of Mesmerism and Electrobiology.

To determine this point experiments were made with solution of sugar, hay infusion, solution of gelatine, and water that had been in contact with putrid meat. To carry out these experiments, the author prepared a series of small tubes made of very thick well-annealed glass, each tube about 4 centimetres in length and having a bore of 5 millimetres. The fluid to be operated upon was introduced into them, and left exposed to the atmosphere for a sufficient length of time for germ-life to be largely developed. Each tube was then hermetically sealed and wrapped in wire gauze. They were then placed in an oil-bath and gradually heated to the required temperature, at which they were maintained for half an hour.

The sugar solution was prepared by dissolving one part of sugar in ten parts of common water, and exposed to the atmosphere all night, so that life might impregnate it, then placed in tubes and allowed to stand five days. Some of the tubes were kept without being heated, others heated to 200, 300, 400, and 500° Fahr. respectively. After being kept twenty-four days, the contents of the tubes were microscopically examined.

In the solution not heated, much life was seen; at 212° a great portion of the life had disappeared, at 300° the sugar was slightly charred but the life not entirely destroyed, while at 400° and 500° the sugar was almost entirely charred, and no trace of life observed. (It is a small black vibrio which resists the high temperature, and remains unaffected by all chemical solutions.)

The hay infusion was made by macerating hay in common water for one hour, filtering the liquor and leaving it exposed to the atmosphere all night, when it was sealed in the small tubes. The results were examined twenty-four days after being heated.

In this case, as in the sugar solution, life was observed in the solutions heated to 200° and 300° Fahr., while in those heated to 400° and 500° F. life was destroyed. In the solution not heated fungus matter was observed, while none appeared in any of the heated solutions.

A solution of gelatine of such strength that it remained liquid in cooling, was exposed to the atmosphere for twenty-four hours, and introduced into the small tubes which were sealed and heated. The fluids were examined twenty-four days after being heated.

The animalcules in this case were principally of a different class to those observed in the two preceding cases, and this class were injured at 100° Fahr. At 212° a considerable diminution in the amount had taken place, whilst at 300° all life was destroyed.

Water was placed in an open vessel, and a piece of meat suspended in it until it became putrid. This fluid was placed in the usual tubes heated, and the contents examined after twenty-four days. In this case life was still observed at 300° Fahr., while at 400° it had disappeared.

As previous experimenters have not exposed their solutions to so high a temperature as 300° Fahr., the life which they found was due to the development of germs remaining in the fluid.

Parts of the putrid meat solutions that had been heated were mixed with albumen, to ascertain whether they still possessed the power of propagating life, the result being that up to 300° Fahr. life and its germs had not been destroyed, whilst at 400° they had.

Putrid meat liquor was exposed for twenty hours to a temperature ranging from the freezing-point to 17° below that point. Immediately after melting the ice the animalcules appeared languid, and their power of locomotion was greatly decreased, but in two hours they appeared as energetic as before.

On Spontaneous Generation, or Protoplasmic Life.
By F. CRACE-CALVERT, F.R.S.

The publication of Dr. Tyndall's paper on the abundance of germ-life in the atmosphere, and the difficulty of destroying this life, as well as other papers published by eminent men of science, suggested the inquiry if the germs existing or produced in a liquid in a state of fermentation or of putrefaction could be conveyed