Popular Science Monthly/Volume 58/November 1900/Address of the President Before the British Association for the Advancement of Science II
| ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT BEFORE THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. |
By Sir WILLIAM TURNER, F. R. S.
II.
FUNCTION OF CELLS.
IT has already been stated that, when new cells arise within pre-existing cells, division of the nucleus is associated with cleavage of the cell plasm, so that it participates in the process of new cell-formation. Undoubtedly, however, its rôle is not limited to this function. It also plays an important part in secretion, nutrition and the special functions discharged by the cells in the tissues and organs of which they form morphological elements.
Between 1838 and 1842 observations were made which showed that cells were constituent parts of secreting glands and mucous membranes (Schwann, Henle). In 1842 John Goodsir communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh a memoir on secreting structures, in which he established the principle that cells are the ultimate secreting agents; he recognized in the cells of the liver, kidney and other organs the characteristic secretion of each gland. The secretion was, he said, situated between the nucleus and the cell wall. At first he thought that, as the nucleus was the reproductive organ of the cell, the secretion was formed in the interior of the cell by the agency of the cell wall; but three years later he regarded it as a product of the nucleus. The study of the process of spermatogenesis by his brother, Harry Goodsir, in which the head of the spermatozoon was found to correspond with the nucleus of the cell in which the spermatozoon arose, gave support to the view that the nucleus played an important part in the genesis of the characteristic product of the gland cell.
The physiological activity of the cell plasm and its complex chemical constitution soon after began to be recognized. Some years before Max Schultze had published his memoirs on the characters of protoplasm, Brücke had shown that the well-known changes in tint in the skin of the chameleon were due to pigment granules situated in cells in the skin which were sometimes diffused throughout the cells, at others concentrated in the center. Similar observations on the skin of the frog were made in 1854 by von Wittich and Harless. The movements were regarded as due to contraction of the cell wall on its contents. In a most interesting paper on the pigmentary system in the frog, published in 1858, Lord Lister demonstrated that the pigment granules moved in the cell plasma, by forces resident within the cell itself, acting under the influence of an external stimulant, and not by a contractility of the wall. Under some conditions the pigment was attracted to the center of the cell, when the skin became pale; under other conditions the pigment was diffused throughout the body and the branches of the cell, and gave to the skin a dark color. It was also experimentally shown that a potent influence over these movements was exercised by the nervous system.
The study of the cells of glands engaged in secretion, even when the secretion is colorless, and the comparison of their appearance when secretion is going on with that seen when the cells are at rest, have shown that the cell plasm is much more granular and opaque, and contains larger particles during activity than when the cell is passive; the body of the cell swells out from an increase in the contents of its plasm, and chemical changes accompany the act of secretion. Ample evidence, therefore, is at hand to support the position taken by John Goodsir, nearly sixty years ago, that secretions are formed within the cells, and lie in that part of the cell which we now say consists of the cell plasm; that each secreting cell is endowed with its own peculiar property, according to the organ in which it is situated, so that bile is formed by the cells in the liver, milk by those in the mamma, and so on.
Intimately associated with the process of secretion is that of nutrition. As the cell plasm lies at the periphery of a cell, and as it is, alike both in secretion and nutrition, brought into closest relation with the surrounding medium, from which the pabulum is derived, it is necessarily associated with nutritive activity. Its position enables it to absorb nutritive material directly from without, and in the process of growth it increases in amount by interstitial changes and additions throughout its substance, and not by mere accretions on its surface.
Hitherto I have spoken of a cell as a unit, independent of its neighbors as regards its nutrition and the other functions which it has to discharge. The question has, however, been discussed, whether in a tissue composed of cells closely packed together cell plasm may not give origin to processes or threads which are in contact or continuous with corresponding processes of adjoining cells, and that cells may therefore, to some extent, lose their individuality in the colony of which they are members. Appearances were recognized between 1863 and 1870 by Schrön and others in the deeper cells of the epidermis and of some mucous membranes which gave sanction to this view, and it seems possible, through contact or continuity of threads connecting a cell with its neighbors, that cells may exercise a direct influence on each other.
Nägeli, the botanist, as the foundation of a mechanico-physiological theory of descent, considered that in plants a network of cell plasm. named by him idioplasm, extended throughout the whole of the plant, forming its specific molecular constitution, and that growth and activity were regulated by its conditions of tension and movements (1884).
The study of the structure of plants, with special reference to the presence of an intercellular network, has for some years been pursued by Walter Gardiner (1882-97), who has demonstrated threads of cell plasm protruding through the walls of vegetable cells and continuous with similar threads from adjoining cells. Structurally, therefore, a plant may be conceived to be built up of a nucleated cytoplasmic network, each nucleus with the branching cell plasm surrounding it being a center of activity. On this view a cell would retain to some extent its individuality, though, as Gardiner contends, the connecting threads would be the medium for the conduction of impulses and of food from a cell to those which lie around it. For the plant cell, therefore, as has long been accepted in the animal cell, the wall is reduced to a secondary position, and the active constituent is the nucleated cell plasm. It is not unlikely that the absence of a controlling nervous system in plants requires the plasm of adjoining cells to be brought into more immediate contact and continuity than is the case with the generality of animal cells, so as to provide a mechanism for harmonizing the nutritive and other functional processes in the different areas in the body of the plant. In this particular, it is of interest to note that the epithelial tissues in animals, where somewhat similar connecting arrangements occur, are only indirectly associated with the nervous and vascular systems, so that, as in plants, the cells may require, for nutritive and other purposes, to act and react directly on each other.
NERVE CELLS.
Of recent years great attention has been paid to the intimate structure of nerve cells, and to the appearance which they present when in the exercise of their functional activity. A nerve cell is not a secreting cell—that is, it does not derive from the blood or surrounding fluid a pabulum which it elaborates into a visible, palpable secretion characteristic of the organ of which the cell is a constituent element, to be in due course discharged into a duct which conveys the secretion out of the gland. Nerve cells, through the metabolic changes which take place in them, in connection with their nutrition, are associated with the production of the form of energy specially exhibited by animals which possess a nervous system, termed nerve energy. It has long been known that every nerve cell has a body in which a relatively large nucleus is situated. A most important discovery was the recognition that the body of every nerve cell had one or more processes growing out from it. More recently it has been proved, chiefly through the researches of Schultze, His, Golgi and Ramon y Cajal, that at least one of the processes, the axon of the nerve cell, is continued into the axial cylinder of a nerve fiber, and that in the multipolar nerve cell the other processes, or dendrites, branch and ramify for some distance away from the body. A nerve fiber is, therefore, an essential part of the cell with which it is continuous, and the cell, its processes, the nerve fiber and the collaterals which arise from the nerve fiber collectively form a neuron or structural nerve unit (Waldeyer). The nucleated body of the nerve cell is the physiological center of the unit.
The cell plasm occupies both the body of the nerve cell and its processes. The intimate structure of the plasm has, by improved methods of observation introduced during the last eight years by Nissl, and conducted on similar lines by other investigators, become more definitely understood. It has been ascertained that it possesses two distinct characters which imply different structures. One of these stains deeply on the addition of certain dyes, and is named chromophile or chromatic substance; the other, which does not possess a similar property, is the achromatic network. The chromophile is found in the cell body and the dendritic processes, but not in the axon. It occurs in the form of granular particles, which may be scattered throughout the plasm, or aggregated into little heaps which are elongated or fusiform in shape and appear as distinct colored particles or masses. The achromatic network is found in the cell body and the dendrites, and is continued also in the axon, where it forms the axial cylinder of the nerve fiber. It consists apparently of delicate threads or fibrillæ, in the meshes of which a homogeneous material, such as is found in cell plasm generally, is contained. In the nerve cells, as in other cells, the plasm is without doubt concerned in the process of cell nutrition. The achromatic fibrillæ exercise an important influence on the axon or nerve fiber with which they are continuous, and probably they conduct the nerve impulses which manifest themselves in the form of nerve energy. The dendritic processes of a multipolar nerve cell ramify in close relation with similar processes branching from other cells in the same group. The collaterals and the free end of the axon fiber process branch and ramify in association with the body of a nerve cell or of its dendrites. We cannot say that these parts are directly continuous with each other to form an intercellular network, but they are apparently in apposition, and through contact exercise influence one on the other in the transmission of nerve impulses.
There is evidence to show that in the nerve cell the nucleus, as well as the cell plasm, is an effective agent in nutrition. When the cell is functionally active, both the cell body and the nucleus increase in size (Vas, G. Mann, Lugaro); on the other hand, when nerve cells are fatigued through excessive use, the nucleus decreases in size and shrivels; the cell plasm also shrinks, and its colored or chromophile constituent becomes diminished in quantity, as if it had been consumed during the prolonged use of the cell (Hodge, Mann, Lugaro). It is interesting also to note that in hibernating animals in the winter season, when their functional activity is reduced to a minimum, the chromophile in the plasm of the nerve cells is much smaller in amount than when the animal is leading an active life in the spring and summer (G. Levi).
When a nerve cell has attained its normal size it does not seem to be capable of reproducing new cells in its substance by a process of karyokinesis, such as takes place when young cells arise in the egg and in the tissues generally. It would appear that nerve cells are so highly specialized in their association with the evolution of nerve energy, that they have ceased to have the power of reproducing their kind, and the metabolic changes, both in cell plasm and nucleus, are needed to enable them to discharge their very peculiar function. Hence it follows that when a portion of the brain or other nerve-center is destroyed, the injury is not repaired by the production of fresh specimens of their characteristic cells, as would be the case in injuries to bones and tendons.
In our endeavors to differentiate the functions of the nucleus from that of the cell plasm, we should not regard the former as concerned only in the production of young cells, and the latter as the exclusive agent in growth, nutrition and, where gland cells are concerned, in the formation of their characteristic products. As regards cell reproduction also, though the process of division begins in the nucleus in its chromosome constituents, the achromatic figure in the cell plasm undoubtedly plays a part, and the cell plasm itself ultimately undergoes cleavage.
A few years ago the tendency amongst biologists was to ignore or attach but little importance to the physiological use of the nucleus in the nucleated cell, and to regard the protoplasm as the essential and active constituent of living matter; so much so, indeed, was this the case that independent organisms regarded as distinct species were described as consisting of protoplasm destitute of a nucleus; also, that scraps of protoplasm separated from larger nucleated masses could, when isolated, exhibit vital phenomena. There is reason to believe that a fragment of protoplasm, when isolated from the nucleus of a cell, though retaining its contractility, and capable of nourishing itself for a short time, cannot increase in amount, act as a secreting structure, or reproduce its kind: it soon loses its activity, withers and dies. In order that these qualities of living matter should be retained, a nucleus is by most observers regarded as necessary (Nussbaum, Gruber, Haberlandt, Korschelt), and for the complete manifestation of vital activity both nucleus and cell plasm are required.
BACTERIA.
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Great attention has been given to the structure of bacteria and to their mode of propagation. When examined in the living state and magnified about 2,000 times, a bacterium appears as a homogeneous particle, with a sharp definite outline, though a membranous envelope or wall, distinct from the body of the bacterium, cannot at first be recognized; but when treated with reagents a membranous envelope appears, the presence of which, without doubt, gives precision of form to the bacterium. The substance within the membrane contains granules which can be dyed with coloring agents. Owing to their extreme minuteness it is difficult to pronounce an opinion on the nature of the chromatine granules and the substance in which they lie. Some observers regard them as nuclear material, invested by only a thin layer of protoplasm, on which view a bacterium would be a nucleated cell. Others consider the bacterium as formed of protoplasm containing granules capable of being colored, which are a part of the protoplasm itself, and not a nuclear substance. On the latter view, bacteria would consist of cell plasm enclosed in a membrane and destitute of a nucleus. Whatever be the nature of the granule-containing material, each bacterium is regarded as a cell, the minutest and simplest living particle capable of an independent existence that has yet been discovered.
Bacteria cells, like cells generally, can reproduce their kind. They multiply by simple fission, probably with an ingrowth of the cell wall, but without the karyokinetic phenomena observed in nucleated cells. Each cell gives rise to two daughter cells, which may for a time remain attached to each other and form a cluster or a chain, or they may separate and become independent isolated cells. The multiplication, under favorable conditions of light, air, temperature, moisture and food, goes on with extraordinary rapidity, so that in a few hours many thousand new individuals may arise from a parent bacterium.
Connected with the life-history of a bacterium cell is the formation in its substance, in many species and under certain conditions, of a highly refractile shiny particle called a spore. At first sight a spore seems as if it were the nucleus of the bacterium cell, but it is not always present when multiplication by cleavage is taking place, and when present it does not appear to take part in the fission. On the other hand, a spore, from the character of its envelope, possesses great power of resistance, so that dried bacteria, when placed in conditions favorable to germination, can through their spores germinate and resume an active existence. Spore formation seems, therefore, to be a provision for continuing the life of the bacterium under conditions which, if spores had not formed, would have been the cause of its death.
The time has gone by to search for the origin of living organisms by a spontaneous aggregation of molecules in vegetable or other infusions, or from a layer of formless primordial slime diffused over the bed of the ocean. Living matter during our epoch has been, and continues to be, derived from pre-existing living matter, even when it possesses the simplicity of structure of a bacterium, and the morphological unit is the cell.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE EGG.
As the future of the entire organism lies in the fertilized egg cell, we may now briefly review the arrangements, consequent on the process of segmentation, which lead to the formation, let us say in the egg of a bird, of the embryo or young chick.
In the latter part of the last century, C. F. Wolff observed that the beginning of the embryo was associated with the formation of layers, and in 1817 Pander demonstrated that in the hen's egg at first one layer, called mucous, appeared; then a second or serous layer, to be followed by a third, intermediate or vascular layer. In 1828 von Baer amplified our knowledge in his famous treatise, which from its grasp of the subject created a new epoch in the science of embryology. It was not, however, until the discovery by Schwann of cells as constant factors in the structure of animals and in their relation to development that the true nature of these layers was determined. We now know that each layer consists of cells, and that all the tissues and organs of the body are derived from them. Numerous observers have devoted themselves for many years to the study of each layer, with the view of determining the part which it takes in the formation of the constituent parts of the body, more especially in the higher animals, and the important conclusion has been arrived at that each kind of tissue invariably arises from one of these layers and from no other.
The layer of cells which contributes, both as regards the number and variety of the tissues derived from it, most largely to the formation of the body is the middle layer, or mesoblast. From it the skeleton, the muscles and other locomotor organs, the true skin, the vascular system, including the blood, and other structures which I need not detail, take their rise. From the inner layer of cells the principal derivatives are the epithelial linings of the alimentary canal and of the air passages. The outer layer of cells gives origin to the epidermis or scarf skin, and to the nervous system. It is interesting to note that from the same layer of the embryo arise parts so different in importance as the cuticle—a mere protecting structure, which is constantly being shed when the skin is subjected to the friction of a towel or the clothes—and the nervous system, including the brain, the most highly differentiated system in the animal body. How completely the cells from which they are derived had diverged from each other in the course of their differentiation in structure and properties is shown by the fact that the cells of the epidermis are continually engaged in reproducing new cells to replace those which are shed, whilst the cells of the nervous system have apparently lost the power of reproducing their kind.
In the early stage of the development of the egg, the cells in a given layer resemble each other in form, and, as far as can be judged from their appearance, are alike in structure and properties. As the development proceeds, the cells begin to show differences in character, and in the course of time the tissues which arise in each layer differentiate from each other and can be readily recognized by the observer. To use the language of von Baer, a generalized structure has become specialized, and each of the special tissues produced exhibits its own structure and properties. These changes are coincident with a rapid multiplication of the cells by cleavage, and thus increase in size of the embryo accompanies specialization of structure. As the process continues, the embryo gradually assumes the shape characteristic of the species to which its parents belonged, until at length it is fit to be born and to assume a separate existence.
The conversion of cells, at first uniform in character, into tissues of a diverse kind, is due to forces inherent in the cells in each layer. The cell plasm plays an active, though not an exclusive part in the specialization; for as the nucleus influences nutrition and secretion, it acts as a factor in the differentiation of the tissues. When tissues so diverse in character as muscular fiber, cartilage, fibrous tissues and bone arise from the cells of the middle or mesoblast layer, it is obvious that, in addition to the morphological differentiation affecting form and structure, a chemical differentiation affecting composition also occurs, as the result of which a physiological differentiation takes place. The tissues and organs become fitted to transform the energy derived from the food into muscular energy, nerve energy and other forms of vital activity. Corresponding differentiations also modify the cells of the outer and inner layers. Hence the study of the development of the generalized cell layers in the young embryo enables us to realize how all the complex constituent parts of the body in the higher animals and in man are evolved by the process of differentiation from a simple nucleated cell—the fertilized ovum. A knowledge of the cell and of its life-history is, therefore, the foundation stone on which biological science in all its departments is based.
If we are to understand by an organ in the biological sense a complex body capable of carrying on a natural process, a nucleated cell is an organ in its simplest form. In a unicellular animal or plant, such an organ exists in its most primitive stage. The higher plants and animals again are built up of multitudes of these organs, each of which, whilst having its independent life, is associated with the others, so that the whole may act in unison for a common purpose. As in one of your great factories each spindle is engaged in twisting and winding its own thread, it is at the same time intimately associated with the hundreds of other spindles in its immediate proximity, in the manufacture of the yarn, from which the web of cloth is ultimately to be woven.
It has taken more than fifty years of hard and continuous work to bring our knowledge of the structure and development of the tissues and organs of plants and animals up to the level of the present day. Amidst the host of names of investigators, both at home and abroad, who have contributed to its progress, it may seem invidious to particularize individuals. There are, however, a few that I cannot forbear to mention, whose claim to be named on such an occasion as this will be generally conceded.
Botanists will, I think, acknowledge Wilhelm Hofmeister as a master in morphology and embryology; Julius von Sachs as the most important investigator in vegetable physiology during the last quarter of a century, and Strasburger as a leader in the study of the phenomena of nuclear division.
The researches of the veteran professor of anatomy in Würzburg, Albert von Kölliker, have covered the entire field of animal histology. His first paper, published fifty-nine years ago, was followed by a succession of memoirs and books on human and comparative histology and embryology, and culminated in his great treatise on the structure of the brain, published in 1896. Notwithstanding the weight of more than eighty years, he continues to prosecute histological research, and has published the results of his latest, though let us hope not his last, work during the present year.
Amongst our countrymen, and belonging to the generation which has almost passed away, was William Bowman. His investigations between 1840 and 1850 on the mucous membranes, muscular fiber and the structure of the kidney, together with his researches on the organs of sense, were characterized by a power of observation and of interpreting difficult and complicated appearances which has made his memoirs on these subjects landmarks in the history of histological inquiry.
Of the younger generation of biologists, Francis Maitland Balfour, whose early death is deeply deplored as a loss to British science, was one of the most distinguished. His powers of observation and philosophic perception gave him a high place as an original inquirer, and the charm of his personality—for charm is not the exclusive possession of the fairer sex—endeared him to his friends.
GENERAL MORPHOLOGY.
Along with the study of the origin and structure of the tissues of organized bodies, much attention has been given during the century to the parts or organs in plants and animals, with the view of determining where and how they take their rise, the order of their formation, the changes which they pass through in the early stages of development and their relative positions in the organism to which they belong. Investigations on these lines are spoken of as morphological, and are to be distinguished from the study of their physiological or functional relations, though both are necessary for the full comprehension of the living organism.
The first to recognize that morphological relations might exist between the organs of a plant, dissimilar as regards their function, was the poet, Goethe, whose observations, guided by his imaginative faculty, led him to declare that the calyx, corolla and other parts of a flower, the scales of a bulb, etc., were metamorphosed leaves, a principle generally accepted by botanists, and, indeed, extended to other parts of a plant, which are referred to certain common morphological forms, although they exercise different functions. Goethe also applied the same principle in the study of the skeletons of vertebrate animals, and he formed the opinion that the spinal column and the skull were essentially alike in construction, and consisted of vertebræ, an idea which was also independently conceived and advocated by Oken.
The anatomist who in our country most strenuously applied himself to the morphological study of the skeleton was Richard Owen, whose knowledge of animal structure, based upon his own dissections, was unrivaled in range and variety. He elaborated the conception of an ideal. archetype vertebrate form which had no existence in nature, and to which, subject to modifications in various directions, he considered all vertebrate skeletons might be referred. Owen's observations were conducted to a large extent on the skeletons of adult animals, of the knowledge of which he was a master. As in the course of development modifications in shape and in the relative position of parts not unfrequently occur, and their original character and place of origin become obscured, it is difficult, from the study only of adults, to arrive at a correct interpretation of their morphological significance. When the changes which take place in the skull during its development, as worked out by Reichert and Rathke, became known and their value had become appreciated, many of the conclusions arrived at by Owen were challenged and ceased to be accepted. It is, however, due to that eminent anatomist to state from my personal knowledge of the condition of anatomical science in this country fifty years ago, that an enormous impulse was given to the study of comparative morphology by his writings, and by the criticisms to which they were subjected.
There can be no doubt that generalized arrangements do exist in the early embryo which, up to a certain stage, are common to animals that in their adult condition present diverse characters, and out of which the forms special to different groups are evolved. As an illustration of this principle, I may refer to the stages of development of the great arteries in the bodies of vertebrate animals. Originally, as the observations of Rathke have taught us, the main arteries are represented by pairs of symmetrically arranged vascular arches, some of which enlarge and constitute the permanent arteries in the adult, whilst others disappear. The increase in size of some of these arches, and the atrophy of others, are so constant for different groups that they constitute anatomical features as distinctive as the modifications in the skeleton itself. Thus in mammals the fourth vascular arch on the left side persists, and forms the arch of the aorta; in birds the corresponding part of the aorta is an enlargement of the fourth right arch, and in reptiles both arches persist to form the great artery. That this original symmetry exists also in man we know from the fact that now and again his body, instead of corresponding with the mammalian type, has an aortic arch like that which is natural to the bird, and in rarer cases even to the reptile. A type form common to the vertebrata does, therefore, in such cases exist, capable of evolution in more than one direction.
The reputation of Thomas Henry Huxley as a philosophic comparative anatomist rests largely on his early perception of, and insistence on, the necessity of testing morphological conclusions by a reference to the development of parts and organs, and by applying this principle in his own investigations. The principle is now so generally accepted by both botanists and anatomists that morphological definitions are regarded as depending essentially on the successive phases of the development of the parts under consideration.
The morphological characters exhibited by a plant or animal tend to be hereditarily transmitted from parents to offspring, and the species is perpetuated. In each species the evolution of an individual, through the developmental changes in the egg, follows the same lines in all the individuals of the same species, which possess, therefore, in common, the features called specific characters. The transmission of these characters is due, according to the theory of Weismann, to certain properties possessed by the chromosome constituents of the segmentation nucleus in the fertilized ovum, named by him the germ plasm, which is continued from one generation to another, and impresses its specific character on the egg and on the plant or animal developed from it.
As has already been stated, the special tissues which build up the bodies of the more complex organisms are evolved out of cells which are at first simple in form and appearance. During the evolution of the individual, cells become modified or differentiated in structure and function, and so long as the differentiation follows certain prescribed lines the morphological characters of the species are preserved. We can readily conceive that, as the process of specialization is going on, modifications or variations in groups of cells and the tissues derived from them, notwithstanding the influence of heredity, may in an individual diverge so far from that which is characteristic of the species as to assume the arrangements found in another species, or even in another order. Anatomists had, indeed, long recognized that variations from the customary arrangement of parts occasionally appeared, and they described such deviations from the current descriptions as irregularities.
DARWINIAN THEORY.
The signification of the variations which arise in plants and animals had not been apprehended until a flood of light was thrown on the entire subject by the genius of Charles Darwin, who formulated the wide-reaching theory that variations could be transmitted by heredity to younger generations. In this manner he conceived new characters would arise, accumulate and be perpetuated, which would in the course of time assume specific importance. New species might thus be evolved out of organisms originally distinct from them, and their specific characters would in turn be transmitted to their descendants. By a continuance of this process new species would multiply in many directions, until at length, from one or more originally simple forms, the earth would become peopled by the infinite varieties of plant and animal organisms which have in past ages inhabited, or do at present inhabit our globe. The Darwinian theory may, therefore, be defined as heredity modified and influenced by variability. It assumes that there is an heredity quality in the egg, which, if we take the common fowl for an example, shall continue to produce similar fowls. Under conditions, of which we are ignorant, which occasion molecular changes in the cells and tissues of the developing egg, variations might arise in the first instance probably slight, but becoming intensified in successive generations, until at length the descendants would have lost the characters of the fowl and have become another species. No precise estimate has been arrived at, and, indeed, one does not see how it is possible to obtain it, of the length of years which might be required to convert a variation, capable of being transmitted, into a new and definite specific character.
The circumstances which, according to the Darwinian theory, determined the perpetuation by hereditary transmission of a variety and its assumption of a specific character depended, it was argued, on whether it possessed such properties as enabled the plant or animal in which it appeared to adapt itself more readily to its environment, i. e., to the surrounding conditions. If it were to be of use, the organism in so far became better adapted to hold its own in the struggle for existence with its fellows and with the forces of nature operating on it. Through the accumulation of useful characters the specific variety was perpetuated by natural selection so long as the conditions were favorable for its existence, and it survived as being the best fitted to live. In the study of the transmission of variations which may arise in the course of development, it should not be too exclusively thought that only those variations are likely to be preserved which can be of service during the life of the individual, or in the perpetuation of the species, and possibly available for the evolution of new species. It should also be kept in mind that morphological characters can be transmitted by hereditary descent, which, though doubtless of service in some bygone ancestor, are in the new conditions of life of the species of no physiological value. Our knowledge of the structural and functional modifications to be found in the human body, in connection with abnormalities and with tendencies or predisposition to diseases of various kinds, teaches us that characters which are of no use, and indeed detrimental to the individual, may be hereditarily transmitted from parents to offspring through a succession of generations.
Since the conception of the possibility of the evolution of new species from pre-existing forms took possession of the minds of naturalists, attempts have been made to trace out the line on which it has proceeded. The first to give a systematic account of what he conceived to be the order of succession in the evolution of animals was Ernst Haeckel, of Jena, in a well-known treatise. Memoirs on special departments of the subject, too numerous to particularize, have subsequently appeared. The problem has been attacked along two different lines: the one by embryologists, of whom may be named Kowalewsky, Gegenbaur, Dohrn, Ray Lankester, Balfour and Gaskell, who, with many others, have conducted careful and methodical inquiries into the stages of development of numerous forms belonging to the two great divisions of the animal kingdom. Invertebrates, as well as vertebrates, have been carefully compared with each other in the bearing of their development and structure on their affinities and descent, and the possible sequence in the evolution of the Vertebrata from the Invertebrata has been discussed. The other method pursued by palæontologists, of whom Huxley, Marsh, Cope, Osborn and Traquair are prominent authorities, has been the study of the extinct forms preserved in the rocks and the comparison of their structure with each other and with that of existing organisms. In the attempts to trace the line of descent the imagination has not unfrequently been called into play in constructing various conflicting hypotheses. Though from the nature of things the order of descent is, and without doubt will continue to be, ever a matter of speculation and not of demonstration, the study of the subject has been a valuable intellectual exercise and a powerful stimulant to research.
We know not as regards time when the fiat went forth, 'Let there be Life, and there was Life.' All we can say is that it must have been in the far-distant past, at a period so remote from the present that the mind fails to grasp the duration of the interval. Prior to its genesis our earth consisted of barren rock and desolate ocean. When matter became endowed with Life, with the capacity of self-maintenance and of resisting external disintegrating forces, the face of nature began to undergo a momentous change. Living organisms multiplied, the land became covered with vegetation and multitudinous varieties of plants, from the humble fungus and moss to the stately palm and oak, beautified its surface and fitted it to sustain higher kinds of living beings. Animal forms appeared, in the first instance simple in structure, to be followed by others more complex, until the mammalian type was produced. The ocean also became peopled with plant and animal organisms, from the microscopic diatom to the huge leviathan. Plants and animals acted and reacted on each other, on the atmosphere which surrounded them and on the earth on which they dwelt, the surface of which became modified in character and aspect. At last Man came into existence. His nerve-energy, in addition to regulating the processes in his economy which he possesses in common with animals, was endowed with higher powers. When translated into psychical activity it has enabled him throughout the ages to progress from the condition of a rude savage to an advanced stage of civilization; to produce works in literature, art and the moral sciences which have exerted, and must continue to exert, a lasting influence on the development of his higher Being; to make discoveries in physical science; to acquire a knowledge of the structure of the earth, of the ocean in its changing aspects, of the atmosphere and the stellar universe, of the chemical composition and physical properties of matter in its various forms, and to analyze, comprehend and subdue the forces of nature.
By the application of these discoveries to his own purposes Man has, to a large extent, overcome time and space; he has studded the ocean with steamships, girdled the earth with the electric wire, tunneled the lofty Alps, spanned the Forth with a bridge of steel, invented machines and founded industries of all kinds for the promotion of his material welfare, elaborated systems of government fitted for the management of great communities, formulated economic principles, obtained an insight into the laws of health, the causes of infective diseases and the means of controlling and preventing them.
When we reflect that many of the most important discoveries in abstract science and in its applications have been made during the present century, and, indeed, since the British Association held its first meeting in the ancient capital of your county sixty-nine years ago, we may look forward with confidence to the future. Every advance in science provides a fresh platform from which a new start can be made. The human intellect is still in process of evolution. The power of application and of concentration of thought for the elucidation of scientific problems is by no means exhausted. In science is no hereditary aristocracy. The army of workers is recruited from all classes. The natural ambition of even the private in the ranks to maintain and increase the reputation of the branch of knowledge which he cultivates affords an ample guarantee that the march of science is ever onwards, and justifies us in proclaiming for the next century, as in the one fast ebbing to a close, that Great is Science, and it will prevail.