The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 15, 1896, Page 17

\ THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1896. memrmwrmmvmmtmwnxmm " ART'S AID TO CIVILIZATION 2920992222R22229898 E By Horace G. Platt Ca. The only standard of beauty is truth, not distorted or modified, but as visible to the soul of the artist. It is nature freed from the trammels of time or circum- stance. «Art must imifate nature,” says Taine, “and when it ceases to do this it de- clines’ But inimitating nature the artist's aim must be not to photograph, but to make manifest what is to him the predominating character, the essential con- ditfon of being 12 the object. The fecultyof perceivingand expressing this esser- tial cond tion is artistic genius. In this endesvor to express this principal quality the artist arrives atthe ideal, that is, ke removes the obstecles that fate or fortune, environment or cir- cumstance, has placed in neture’s path and givesit a chance to perfect itself on the lines of its first intention. This development is beautiful, because it Is natural, and you know that itis natural beeause it is true. The idesl is the expression of what the artist feels he sees. The true artist feels that he sees the periect form through the imperfections that clog nature, as Praxiteles saW the perfest figure of Venus sleeping within the rough-hewn block of marble. The aim of art is to cut away these imperfections and to strive for the fect, which must be the beautiful. A work of art must be, therefore, as Taine s, “a representation of an object more perfectly than it is found in nature.” oulless nature plus soulful man evoived into the ideal. Ruskin savs that the living power inall the real schools of art is the love of ‘nature; that art followed as such and for its own sake, irrespective of the inter- pretations of nature, is déstructive of whatever is best and noblest in humanity, but that so far ss it is devoted to the record or interpretation of nature it is helpiul and ennobling. Art culture, therefore, implies not only appreciation of the beautiful, but love of nature. Itsiimulates us tostudy God’s handiwork, to aistinguish the lines of beauty asGod made them before man unmade them. It reveals to us the int zence that guided creation, the skill that worked out creation, the beauty that thus found expression. It discovers tous that nature is perfect, because to have changed it would have made it imperfect. To idealize nature is not to change nuture. The artist does not himself improve nature by idealizing it. He simply obeys the inspiration of nature and depicts ber per- fected in passing through the crucible of his soul, The artist in doing this works s nature will Love of beauty is therefore love of nature, and love of nature is love of God. By love of God I do not necessarily mean religion as commonly understood. I mean the worship and adoration the soul offers up to the Supreme Artist who painted the skies and flecked them not with a cloud that marred their beauty, nor spangled them with stars but to add to the splendid effect of darkness light bepierced, who painted the valleys green and cest a haze over rugged mountain sides, who veried the dullness of plains with the sheen of running waters, and painted o'er the green of spring with the gold of fall, that men might not tire of monotony, and then made men in His own image. The most beautiful form of nature is therefore the human form divine, and art was greatest when the human figure rather than human thought occupied most its attention, Ruskin says that “all progressive art hitherto has been religious art,” and It i that “‘art was never employed on a great scale except in the serviee of religion.” 1do not altogether agree with him. Religion may have furnished the oceasion for, the opportunity of art’s greatest efforts, but it was not of itself the inspiration of the highest art known in history. In ancient Greece art climbed nearest heaven and brought the gods to earth. It was essentially human. Praxiteles in carving his Venus sought to deify humanity by producing a perfect human form, to carve in merble his ideal of woman, if woman was divine, 10 give to man a type of beauty nature would have produced if, in creating woman, it had not been chained down by mortality. It wes not divinity but humanity that his artistic sonl worshiped. In those days man’s best efforts were spent in cultivating health and strength and grace and beauty of iorm, and athletic skill. Greatest in Greece was he who came off victor at the Olympian games and gave his name to the coming years- Whether Apelies painted beauty of face or depicted on canvas the mysteries of religious worship we knew not. Sculpture slone telis of Grecian art, and it found bestexpression in that which most interested the people of (hat time. The artists of that age did as artists of every age must do. they filled mind and heart with the ideas and sentiments of their age. Hence their master ider was “the living, heaithy, energetic, active human body, endowed with every athletic and animal itud It was their delight to carve from stone undraped humanity. All olved no immodesty because there was no need for modesty. The dy was not from shame of exposure scrupulously concealed. On the would have been almost sacrilege not to have exposed it to universal adm on. It was held tobe beautiful when healthy and strong and graceful. be nude did not exist. There was nakedness, not nudity. Excess of clothing, shes consequent upon nudity, predominance of lust in the mind in lieu of apprecietion of beauty in the eye, these all came when the people deteriorated and men could nolonger stand the fatigues of athletic contests. Then Grecian art declined. The next great period of art was the Renaissance, in the latter half of the fifteenth and the first haif of the sixteenth centuries, in Italy. Religion was then contrary, i all powerful, but 1t was much colored by human ambition. The Pope’s earthly « love of pomp aud power gave Michael Angelo and Rafael the opportunities their genlus craved, znd Rafael’s “Transfiguration,”’ his Madonnas, his irescoes in the Vatican, and Michael Angelo’s “Last Judgment” and his frescoes in the Sistine chapel, gave assurance to the world that art was not dead, but bad risen from the grave io put on immortality. The arisiocragy of church and state in Florence, ‘Rome and Venice at this time was devoted mainly to the pleasures of this world. He ruied who had the strongest arm and keenest blade and braves: heart. Physical health and strength and skill were every man’s first care. Tne perfect” iug of the human body was one of man’s chicf aims. The most important aequire- mentin the art of drawing was to make a good drawing of a naked man or woman, Michael Angelo spent several years dissecting human bodies in order to know how todraw them. All the great artists of this period—Michael Angelo, Rafael, Leonardo da Vinei, Corregio, Titian—and after them the Flemish Rubens, strove .bardest to paint a perfect human body, because nothing else in nature was 5o - beautiful. They were alike in this common inspiration. They differed only in treatment of this common theme. In this difference lay their originality. Each depicted humanity as bis sonl conceived it, as s artistic eye saw it, as his genius toid him that nature wonld bave developed it if man and circomstance had not marred it. No one of them egreed with another, and yet all were correct, each from his own point of view, Had any one of them not been correct, had he attempted 1o create instead of de- vyoutly copying nainre as he felt he saw i, had his ideal not been built upon the rcal, he would have failed and his name would have been lost in the lapse of cen- turies. Art was poor and hysterical before the Renaissance, it became poor and unnatursl after these great artists had passed away and for the same cause as in ancient Greece. The Venus of Milo and the School of Athens marked the two greatest periods in the history of arl. These two masterpieces are beacon lights of art, visible in the surrounding darkness of the centuries like two distant lighthouses n the multitudinous seas. Art in each of these works reached its Zzenith. What did #rt at its zenith accomplish for civilization? It should have done more then than atuny other time. Itdid not seve culture, progress, national health, strengih or glory from decay. On the contrary it was followed closely. n each case by moral, physical and national decline. Itgave to the worid st these periods the sublimest expressions of man’s idea of the beautiful, it found its in. spiration in nature and in neture its highest type was the buman bedy. Itled man to the study of nature in the search for the beautitul, it taught him that God’s grandest creation was man and that healtn and sirength were necessary to his full development. Surely this wasa good lesson. Civilization is impossible without it. But appreciation of the beautiful is one of the resultants of civilization, not ©ne of is causes. It follows after the struggle for bread is successful, the contest for wealth is won, the conflicts of the battlefield are fought out to victory. It re. fines, elevates, ennobles man, develops his soul, raises his gaze from the sod to the star. But it cannot sustain civilizaton. If history teaches anything, the glorification of art is rather an indication that civilization is reaching its zonith and that the down grade is approaching. It is the 1ight that crowns the summit and iilumines man’s best condition. Prosperity is not, however, the best school for mankind. Claracter is built up by struggling to be prosperons. Its most dengerous foe is the attainment of the end desired. Are we not more civilized at the end of the nineteenth century than in the fifth century before Christ or at the end of the fifteenth century after Christ? We sre; but we are again fighting for breed, and the hosts of wealth and poverty are watching each other across the battiefield. The craving for the useful almost drives out the love of the beautiful. The eves of the people are not trained to ape Ppreciation of painting or sculpture. Art is not in their soul. There s no public " opinion on which art ean feed. Uncuitured wealth in seeking for culture is try- ing to build up, to encourage artand bribe it to decorate its marble halls, But art that can be bribed, that goes for inspiration only to the money-bags of Croesus, has nosoul. Sucn is notgreat art. Nature reveals to it naught of her beauty. Artis, however, imperishable. Nature during certain periods simply withaolas but does not throw away the key to her treasures. Atits own proper nour the love of the bzautiful wiil again fill our lives as of Old in Greece and Italy, and will find expression in the genius of some modern B Prnxn.eles, Michael Angelo or Rafael. Artis an expression of civilization, and expresses only that which for the time is In or of civiiization. The highestart Is, therefore, civilization in its most “itractive phase, and has as such done much for man. *“What Has Law Done for Civilizltlon?‘,' “What Has Art Done for Civilization?”. &s Regards the Seat of Life?”. “*What Has Religion Doue for Civilization? of brilliant and able minds. Mr. President: The sentiment to which I em called upon to respond—the effect of law upon civilizetion—sssumes at a glance such vast proportions that it seems difficult witnin the limit of time necessarily imposed by the exigencies of the present occasion to attempt to give even so much as a general outline of the thoughts which its mention evokes. To describe the gradual but ceaseless and resistless evolution of the human race from the condition of rudeness in which history and ethnology teach it was found not so very many centuries ago; 1o descry the first faint glimuner of the light of arts, sci€nce and philosophy upon the remote inhabitants of India; to discern its gradual expansion beyond the confines of the empire watered by the Indus and the Ganges; to trace its dawn upon the Grecian Archipelago, and watch it lingering long and lovingly upon the shores of the Pireus and the homes of the beroes, the Muses and the fabled deities ot Hellenic mythology, vivifying the arts, the literature and the philosophy which for over twenty centuries have held sway over mankind and left their constant and ineffaceablie impress upon all succeeding Western civilizations; to see it gradually tinging with its rays the crest of the seven hills of Rome, trans- forming it by degrees info the abode of whatever was exalted in the realm of human achievements; to gaze upon its refraction from the imperial metropolis of the Cmsars along the Mediterranean till on the one shore it illumined its margins from the delta of the Nile to the Pillars of Hercules, and on the other, following the Maritime Alps, dazzied with its splendor the berbaric inhabitants of Gaul, of Spain and of Britain; to vehold it stationary fora thousand years, its westward course arrested, and then, accompanying the daring caravels of the Genoese navigator, shining upon their path across the affronted perils of un. explored seas and kindling at last the altar fires of anew race of men upon a new- discovered continent: to view it flaming scross the Atlantic sky, undimmed emid the storms of the New England winter or the tropical luxuriance of the Southern Coast; to notice it thence gradually diffusing its radiarce over the tops of the Alleghanies, the banks of the Ohfo, the waters of the Mississippi, the boundless prairies, the heights of the Rocky Mountains, the sands of the desert, the summits of the Sierras until it tinged the crested waves of the boundiess Pacific, and, then—to us Californians a spectsele aud a transiormation full of deepest interest and most touching instruction—to contemplate the mountains, th. hills and the valleys of our beloved State, under the vower of it benign ine fluence, changed within our memory from the hnbitat of rude savages into the homes of & new order of beings who, in the advancement of arts, literature and sclence, in the development of the resources and the natural advantages which are the basis as well of individua; happiness s of National prosperity, have, in less than a century, reached & point where they may well challenge the aamira- tior and excite the generous emulation of the most favored of the sons of men in the most favored climes—to do this, I say, to undertake this task and then to at- tempt to measure and define the influence which law has had upon this ever expanding light of civilization, how it has removed the obstacles in its ‘path and made secure its gradual conquest over the empire of darkness, were & task vast as the history of the human race—commensurate with the achievements of the human mind—limitless as the aspirations of the human heart, & task far beyond the strength or ability of him who feels honored 10 be here numbered among your guests. But, Mr. President, if the general scope of the subject is too vast perhaps one example may serve at least to illustrate it. Asked what has been the influence of law upon civiiization, I might answer: Look around you. Recall and reflect upon what has taken place within the last few days under our own eyes there, where Western civilization has taken its last stand. One week 8go this very night we presented the spectacle of a Nation of seventy millions of people divided into two hostile camps, each led by its own supreme commander, each composed of nearly one-half the population, each filling its ranks with members eager, intent upon victory. For over three months struggle for rule and supremacy, protracted and intense, had been waged, and the contest had then reacbed its highest point of fierce culmination. The vrinciples contended ior by both parties seemed in direct antagonism each to the other. From the iips of ten thousand orators and in the columns of ten thousaud papers were daily issuing denunciations of opponents, predictions of dire calamities to follow the defeat of & favored champlon, and auguries of unexampled blessings and prosperity to wait upon his success. Processions of sincere and earnest men marched in serried ranks through the streets of crowded cities, bearing aloft banners with mottoes. typifying their own fa.th or deriding the tenetsof their an'agonists. Ensigns were defianily flung to the breeze, and the emblem that floats equally over the arts of peace and the smoke of battle. the revered symbol of the Nation, was borne aloft by both the contending hosts as a challenge to the world that it alone was worthy 1o be the protector of the Nation’s honor and the defender of the Nation’s interests. The excitement which ever attends the confrontation of large bodies of men, 2ctuaied by different aims. seeking different objects and contending upon differ- ent lines for mastery, had reached the zenith and seemed to threaten resort to supreme, though dread, arbiter of human contentions—ioree. The next day had been designated as the day of battle, And what happened then? The aduit pop- ulation of this Nation, tnroughout the vast expanse of its imperial domain, marched to the scene of conflict. The institutions of the country and the time- honored traditions of the age had decreed that the contest should be one of mind and not of matter, of principles and not of arms, of peace and not of war. And peacefully did it take place. Even there, where the antagonism was most strenu- ous, not an inciden® occurred to dim the splendor or mar the perfection of the spectacle. Thesun went down; but not over a field of carnage. Its expiring beams were not refizcted by the grimed visage of the victor, flushed with savage exultation, nor did they fall upon the lifeless face of a defeated foe. Instead, a great people sat in calm majesty to determine the result of & victory of peace. By the light of bonfires, under the fierce glare of electricity, through the livelong nignt, throngs crowded the streets of great cities, surging to and fro like the waves of a mighty ocean in their eagerness to catcn the indications of triumph or defeat. And in all this there was no commotion, no contention, no violence. Before another sun had risen the decision had been snnounced—each perty knew the decree that fate had had in store as the culmination of its aspirations or death- knell of its hopes. And when the sun rose next morn it looked down upon the Nation’s miliions peacefully resuming their daily toil, industrious, contented and cheerful—mutual expressions of good wishes interchanged between the vic- torious and the deleated champiors, couched in terms of most perfect courtesy and unaffected patriousm—the banners taken from their staves and all trace of contest swept away. One might have thought a pebble had been dropped into the smooth waters of a Jake—a splash, a ripple and in a moment all again was still. Therefore is it, Mr. President, that if asked what influence law has had upon civilization I would be tempted tosay: What but law—law wisely framed and wisely administered—has made so sublime a spectacle a possibllity? Who but a people in whom obedience and submission to law is not so much the result of reasoning aund reflection as an impulse of the heart and an instinct of the mind could exhibit such moderation in victory, such acquiescence in defeat ? _— Lines to Shakespeare. Say, Bard divine, sweet singer of all time! Who filled thy soul with such ethereal flame, Conceiving thoughts thine ardor could not tame— So rugged, rough, so noble and subiime? Inspired magician of a mighty pen! The heart's affections in thy numbers sang— The storm of passions in thy verses rang— Thou wert of life th’ interpreter to men, Albion’s . ard | when time shall disappesr, Then shall thy laurel wreath grow rank and sere. ~REV. P. A. WRIGHT. 8. M.. in Donahoe's Magazine. CHIT-CHAT CLUB ELOQUENCE ‘Wit, wisdom and eloquence characterized the speeches at the twenty-second annual dinner of the Chit-Chat Club of €an anciscq on Monday evening last. William Greer Harrison presided, and, after the elaborate dinner, introduced the literary exercises in an appropriate and happy manner. The music, rendered at intervals during the evening, was arranged by Professor H. J. Stewart, in a way to answer the question, “What Has Music Done for Civilization?’’ The programme of the speakers was as follows: “What Has Science Done for Civilivation, as lllustrated by late . 13 Hon. D. M. Deimas. .Horace G. Platt. coveries Professor Gustav Eisen. s Professor Bernard Moges. $ Each effort was a masterpiece, and their publication will be bailed with delight by the host of readers who will appreciate the sentiments Mr. President: It gives me pleasure to be once more a guest at this board, and to be reminded of the wit and wisdom enjoyed here on other occasions. Re- membering the vigorous thought and finished speech to which you have become accustomed, I turn to the subject proposed with embarrassment, knowing that its vital intellectual importance has brought it profoundly irto the thought of every cultivated msn, and particularly to the attention of every student of history. But the judgments concerning it which ‘are most frequenty heard are those pro- nounced either by the advocates or opponents of specific forms of worship. They involve the one-sidedness and extravugance of special pleading, and leave unre- vealed the truth desired. Some phases of the truth we seek. will appear when we remember that the maiu function of religion in social evolution is not to initiate but to conserve; that it stands for the forces of tradition and instinct, and not for the forces of in- telligence. Under the domination of freely actiug intelligence man appears as a redical, and seeks better conditions through changes which ne consciously pro- poses. Under the domination of religious instinet he appears as a conservative, and holds to princip.es and forces which he conceives to be a part of an everiast- ing order. Pure intelligence in social progress is revolutionary; in tle creation and pursuit of its ideals it is seli-sufficient and neglectfui of \radition. The relig- ious instinct, on the other hand, adores that which was from the beginning, and in its influence on progress tends to bind the present to the past, and allows the {orces of the past to help determine the affairs of the present. The social problems which a nation in any generation has to face cannot be solved by the pure intelligence of that nation as manifest in that generation. The knowledge of the bulk of any community is only half-knowledge and is in- adequate to social control. France In the Revolution cut lose from religion, re- Jected her national tradition and relied on the immediate intelligence of her peo- ple. The outcome was s fiasco; and after the Revolution had dealt its first blow at the past there was no hope of progress for the nation till tradition, with its halo of religion, bad been rehabititated. The temporary failure here observea was such a ferlure as is bound to appear whenever reform proceeds solely on the conclusion of inteiligence. We are not determined in the lsrger partof our action or non-actions by the investigations and decisions of our intelligence, but by tradition, which operates through our instincts and brings, already formed, a solution for most of the cases on which we are called to act. If we of this com- pany work not all the evil we might do it is not because our intelligences sit in judgment on every proposed act, but because we are moved in our conduct by tra- dition, by an fnheritance of impulses which are able to make themselveseffective in our lives by the fact that they were involved in the religion of our-ancestors. Itis this sanctified inheritance which preserves society, in its evolution, true to itself. It is this which enables a nation to carry itself steadily forwara in spite of the vagaries of immature thought and the aberrations of temporary passion. Because religion is conservative it is scmetimes claimed that it hindersrather than helps the onward movement, that it chains the wheels of progress. Take an illustration from two drivers on one of our long, steep mountain roads. The one chains a wheel of his wagon, and is thus enabled to carry his load stesaily and safely along the narrow deciine 1o its destination. The other will have nothing of such hindrances, and, with all wheels iree, enters upon what he regards as his career of rapid and uninterrupted progress. But soon his ioad is beyond control, the leaders are in wild flight, and at a dangerous turn horses, ariver and all are plunged over the precipice in one promiscuous ruin. If we, the American people, with all the momentum of the ages, have thus far been able to keep to the road of genuine progress, and have safely rounaed the sharp curve Wwhich looks 1nto the abyss of National dishonor, it is because there exists in us still some inneritance of the things our fathrs lived for, some unconscious mem- ory, it may be, of the principles whnich their religious consciousness approved. The eflicacy of religion in relation to social evolution is, furthermore, illus- trated by its power in strengthening the sense of duty. In social concerns this sense Is weakened in proportion as emphasis is laid on individual rights. Since the loud proclamation of the rights of man in the last century the doctrine there involved has operated on society as a disintegrating force. It has tended to make the individual man forgetful of everything but his claims. It has encour- aged his natural selfishness and made his relation to organized society conspicu. ously a relation of personal, material profit. In itself it points only to anti-social consequences. In order, therefore, that through its influence the development of society may not be prevented, or the bonds of social intercourse be dissolved, the recognition of rights must be supplemented by the recognition of duties. The assertion of rights presumes social antagonisms; the performance of du- ties suggests the spirit of associution. It is, therefore, only with the recognition of duties that social evolution begins; and in the whole course of social growth 10 agency has been more powerful than religion in enforcing aud keeping alive the sense of duty, and thus implanting in men the qualities under which society proceeds by evolution to & higher standard. It may not be maintained that religion 2elps directly to build means of com- munieation, to establish and operate factories, or, in any other way, to bring the forces of nature into subjection to man. But doing these things is only ome phase of progre: In the course of national evoiution there are ages of action and ages of ideas, and the achievements of both are essential to true social de- velopment. Neither the heroic undertaking of the Athenians sgainst the Per- sians, nor the events of the period of material prosperity which toliowed, gives us 2 full view ot Athenian civilization. The development was not complete till the spirit of the nation had unfolded itselt in the creation of religious and artistic ideals, and realized through these the higher manifestations of social existence. What is true of the Athenians is true of every nation. However great its power and economic achievements, its evolution is incomplete till it has acquired clear religious ideals that have found expression in life. And it is to religion, more- over, that society must look for the transmission of its highest conceptions from generation to generation. What religion teaches about God and moral conduct has taken form through human thonught, and this doctrine gathered into one body and accepted ns part of the system of religion goes everywhere bearing the stamp of divine authority. And throughout the ages the re.igious system is destined to be the means through wiich the highest thoughts of the race on God and human life are preserved and made a portion of our common inheritance. It mainteins the continuity of our highest conceptions, and carries them on with all their uplifting force, frcm age to age and from nation to nation. The continual iteration of ““There is nogod but God” has kept this tnought in the Mohammedan mind, and lifted the followers of the prophet above the degradation of their earlier days. And modern philosophy, with its combination of assumptions and unverified deductions, has struggled in vain to form a higher conception of God than that which Judaism and Christianity have proclaimed and carried on from century to century. But there is a still more important service which religion renders to social evolution. By emphasizing the spiritual as contrasted with the physical side of man’s being, a basis has been Iaid fora new and higher estimate of the worth of human life; and this new conception of the dignity and worth of msn has given rise tomany of the characteristic qualit‘es of the worid’s ripest civilization. It underlies the movement in behalf of universal education. It has called into existence the whole scheme of modern charity, from the care and training of Walfs to the efforts to protect and redeem the idiotic. and the insanme. It has tended to deprive the penalties or the law of their former barbirity without diminishing their efliciency in aefending the peaceful and the virtuous. In a word, 1t has given to the civilization of this age & Tank not attained by that of any other age, although other ages may have transcended us in the excellence of their literature and the perfection of their art. 1f the devotee of science, in the assurance of hiszeal, feels obliged to announce that his investigations nowhere lead t0 a knowledge of God; if the philosopher descends from bis lofty flight in the realm of mataphysics, and brings no tidings of a personal moral ruler, the world need not be dismayed; every age in the course of intellectual progress has been obliged to revise the scientific conclusions and philosophical opinions of preceding ages; the wisdom of yesterday has become the folly of to-day; and yet throughout all the vicissitudes which have merked the growth of society, men have held consistently to the conception of as the center of the physical and morai universe, the corner-stone of Teligion, the object of human faith, the sublime working hypothesis of humanity. ‘ THE MAGIC WAND OF SCIENCE 311 By Professor Gustav Eisen unmxmwmu&mnx&j As early as 300 years ago the microscope, imperfect as it was, revealed to the student of biology the fact that both plants and animals are composed of what was then called ceils. The minuteness of these cells prevented a profounder knowledge of their structure. It was supposed that the cells were solid or homo- geneous throughout, and thatnature's object with cell structure and cell bound- aries was simply to keep the body of the animal or plant together. The name cell was given to these minute structures on account of resemblance to the honey- comb of the bee. For nearly 300 years the naturalists were satisfiad with this imperfect knowle edge; no greateffort was made to further reveal the intricate structure of the cell, and no endeavor to impreve the methods and instruments of research. In the beginning of this century a decided advance was made, when simultaneously several naturalists discovered that the contents of the cell was not a solid one, but that it contained at least one strongly differentiated body to which was given the name of nucleus. It soon became evident that this nuclens was a most impor- tant body; that it pogsessed runctions essential to the life of the cell, and that it at times showed activities and changes, not at the time explainable. Several decades later it became known through observation that when a cell divided the process began not on the exterior but in the interior ot the cell. It had already been long known that when the body of an animal or & plant grows and increases in size, this growth is caused by cell division. Thousands and thousands of the cells in the body then divide and divide again, and soon, through the assimila- tion of food, increase to the same size as the present cells. It is by this indivision and increase in size of the cells that the body grows, and this law is applicable to all organic life, whether of animals or plauts. But the great question was, how did this division of cells and increase of volume take place? What caused the cells to divide? Where was the motive power that guided this operation? Was it a complex or simple one? Was it th same in animal and vegetable tissues, or did it differ in the respective kingdoms of nature? ' Tnis ard simiiar questions remained unanswered to within a few years ago. That we have been able to answer them at all and in a satisfactory way is entirely due to modern methods in microscopical study. It is to these distinct discoveries that this advance is especially due. The first one is the dis- covery of & new chemical glass, whicb has enabled the manufacturers of micro. scopes to produce much better lenses—lenses with more defining power, lenses that will more clearly demonstrate the minutest structures formerly unsuspected by the best-informed students. The second discovery which has aided microse copy and biology in general is the invention of aniline colors. By the aid of these it is now possible to stain the different structures in thz cell differently and insuch a way that every isolated part stands out distinctly by itselfl. These colors are selective, and in the hands of a skiilful menipulator will produce wonders as regards microscopic demonstration. The third discovery, without which microscopy would not have advanced, is the invention of the microtome, an instrument by which thin sections of animal and vegetable tissue might be cut. So perfect is the instrument now made thet we can cut sections 35,000 to aninch thick, though generally one-half or one-fourth of that suffices for ordi nary investigations. The modus operandi in microscopical work is then first to cut the sectione then to stain them, ana afterward observe them with the best lenses of modern make. By these means a biologist a few years agodiscovered in the cell another body besides the nucleus, one hundred times more animate and apparently of homogeneous structure. To this body was given the name “centrosome, ” mean- Ing toe central body in the cell. It was soon found that this centrosome played & most important part in cell division, and it is yet doubtful if, without it, any cell division could take place. The centrosome was first found in the cells of animal tissue and later on in thoseof plants. Itisnow almost certain that it exists in the healthy cells and that it is a most important organ in the cell There are many different theorles as regards its nature, and, though several thousand books and papers have been published on the subject within & very. few years, thousands more must be published before we know the whole truth about this interesting body. - The microscope reveals to us that just before a cell divides the centrosome shows great activity, and that it div.des. The two halves, or rather the two new centrosomes thus formed, send out minute protoplasmic rays all through the cell and at the same time they move apart. This movement apart is rapié and con- cise. Inafew minutes or in less than an hour the two centrosomes wili have moved so that each one is situated at the opposite poles of the cell, each one at opposite enas of the nucleus. By this time the whole cell is full of these pro- Jjecting rays streaming out from the two central ones. They penetrate every- where, even into the nucleus, in which they cause very important and violent disturbances and changes. The principal points of the nucleus are the dark-staining bodies or rods, known s the chromosomes, because they stain darker than any other substance in the cell, except the centrosome itself. It has been proven of late, within a few months, that these chromosomes are the carriers of hereditary characteristics from one cell to another, from the parent to the child, from the cells of the seed to the full- grown tree or flower. In indivision it is therefore of the greatest importance that these chromosomes should be equally divided, not only as to quantity but in quality as well. If too much is given to one cell and too little to another it is evident a disturbance will take place in the development of the plant or the animal species and that one offspring would resemble its parsnts a great deal and the other much less. 2 In the blood of certain animals we find at least two distinct corpuscles, the im- portance of which ‘can hardly be overestimated. These corpusclesor globules are the red and the white, each class having a different function. In each individual corpuscle we find a centrosome, which there, asin all other cells, performs its function in directing cell division and assisting and man- ipulating the chromosomes. But when the cells have been worn out and become no more useful they are thrown away as so much waste material, dissolved by the fluids of the body and carried away by them. But the centrosome does not at -once follow the rest of the dead cell. Indeed, while the cell and its nucleus dies, the centrosome surrounds itself with some protoplasmic covers, which grow in size and assume regular spherical form. This new body separates itself ultimately \ irom the dead and decaying cell, and swims out into the liquid of the blood as a new and independent body, capable of growth and assimilation of food, movement and sensitiveness. We find them in the blood of certain animals in so great a quantity and of so great & size that they can be readily studied, while in the blood of other animals they ere much smaller and more difficult to discern, but they are not the less real and not of less importance. To this body as & whole, the centrosome surrou-ded by several spheresof protoplasmic matter, I have given the name of archosome, the “old body,” and perhaps the original body in the cell. If its existence will be found in all cells only future investigations will show. At present] have been able to demonstrate it in the blood cells of haif a dozen animals, including man, and also inseveralcells of various animals of different degrees of systematic development, such as in the epidermal cells of the earth worm, in the lung cells of the large garden slug and in s few others. Allowing that in time the archosome will be found in &ll cells at some period in its existence the question will then arise about its relationship to the cell it~ self. Is it an organ in the cell or is the cell a covering for the archosome? In what relationship does the nucleus stand to the archosome and the cell? An in- teresting theory has been advocated ot late by a few biologists in regard to this relationship. They contend that originally the nucleus and the cell were two distinct and separate entities, living apart from each otker and in no way de- pendent upon each other as they arenow. This must have been at the beginning or shortly after the beginning of organized life. In course of time a parasitism taok place, a symbiosis or living together of the nucleus and the cell. One be- came dependent upon the other for its welfare and later on for its existence, they became messmates to such an extent that the secretions of the one become a necessity for the other, and the two together became capable of development as a whole organized body, s & new being. To-day there exists no nucleus without a cell, and no cell without a Dpucteus, and the conclusion is therefore legitimate that neither can exist under present conditions without the other. This was the theory only a little while ago, before the archosome was discovered to possess an individuality of its own. Now when we know that this body can separate itself from the balance of the cell elements and survive while they go to decay; when we can follow the development of the archosome from a minute beginning to a final development of much larger : iz when we know that this body possesses structure and form, movement and sens: tiveness and that it is capable of assimilating food; when, in fact, we can demon- strate that it possesses all the characteristics of individuality, are we not then justified In assigning to it a more important function than thatofa mere organ in the cell? The famous cell theory will have to be modified, and if we now concede & symbiosls between the diffezent structures of the cell instead of a were relation- ship as organsin the same body, then this symbiosis must exist between the principal partsof the cell, between the nucleus and the archosome, instead of the nucleus and the céll. If this is so then thecell itself iseiiher asecondary struc ture resulting from the mutual development of the nucleus and the archosome, or it is an independent body, showing with the nueleus and the arch:some a triune symbiosis, the resuit ot which 1s the common cell of animal or vegetable tissue. We might conclude that each one of these three structures has its impor- tant function to perform in the small biological colony—the cell to protect and nourish, the nucleus to transmit hereditary qualities, and the archosome to di- rect and govern the division of the cell and perhaps some of its other functions “and activities. Countless numbers of these triune bodies go to make up the general structure of organic life, and in the innermost of these, the archosome, must we search for the seat of mechanical and possibly also for individualized lite.