pefied by
the one, or strangled by the other. I look, however, forward to a
time when the strength, insight, and elevation which now visit us in
mere hints and glimpses, during moments 'of clearness and vigour,'
shall be the stable and permanent possession of purer and mightier
minds than ours--purer and mightier, partly because of their deeper
knowledge of matter and their more faithful conformity to its laws.

********************

XII. FERMENTATION, & ITS BEARINGS ON SURGERY & MEDICINE.

[Footnote: A Discourse delivered before the Glasgow Science Lectures
Association, October 19, 1876.]

ONE of the most remarkable characteristics of the age in which we
live, is its desire and tendency to connect itself organically with
preceding ages--to ascertain how the state of things that now is came
to be what it is. And the more earnestly and profoundly this problem
is studied, the more clearly comes into view the vast and varied debt
which the world of to-day owes to that fore-world, in which man by
skill, valour, and well-directed strength first replenished and
subdued the earth. Our prehistoric fathers may have been savages, but
they were clever and observant ones. They founded agriculture by the
discovery and development of seeds whose origin is now unknown. They
tamed and harnessed their animal antagonists, and sent them down to us
as ministers, instead of rivals in the fight for life. Later on, when
the claims of luxury added themselves to those of necessity, we find
the same spirit of invention at work. We have no historic account of
the first brewer, but we glean from history that his art was
practised, and its produce relished, more than two thousand years ago.
Theophrastus, who was born nearly four hundred years before Christ,
described beer as the wine of barley. It is extremely difficult to
preserve beer in a hot country, still, Egypt was the land in which it
was first brewed, the desire of man to quench his thirst with this
exhilarating beverage overcoming all the obstacles which a hot climate
threw in the way of its manufacture.

Our remote ancestors had also learned by experience that wine maketh
glad the heart of man. Noah, we are informed, planted a vineyard,
drank of the wine, and experienced the consequences. But, though wine
and beer possess so old a history, a very few years ago no man knew
the secret of their formation. Indeed, it might be said that until
the present year no tho