262 Dr. Goring^s Commentary on 



How are we to judge of the fitness of any optical instrument 

 whatever, to examine unknown objects, save by its performance 

 on known ones ? Many a good microscope has been made, 

 though its maker never, perhaps, saw any object with it but a 

 bit of dial plate, or, at best, an artificial star ; yet, by these 

 objects alone, he would be able perfectly to ascertain its per- 

 formance on anything else : the distinction of known and un- 

 known objects appears to me puerile. 



When some objects, or some class of objects, are discovered 

 (as may one day by possibility happen) which simple micro- 

 scopes can shew, but which the engyscopes cannot, then, and 

 not till then, will it be just to assert, that they are unworthy of 

 confidence upon unknown objects. 



I really would advise observers (for the present at least) to 

 336 very cautious how they see objects with the former instru- 

 ments, which they cannot see with the latter. A great deal 

 too much has been seen with simple microscopes from the days 

 of Leeuenhoek downwards : if by their fruits alone we are 

 to know them, they seem less to be depended on than the 

 old compounds ; for, with the help of weak eyes and a strong 

 imagination, there is no end to what can be shewn by them. 

 Engyscopes, unfortunately, do not strain the eyes sufficiently 

 to enable us to penetrate very far into the invisible world ; 

 besides, people always entertain a little wholesome distrust of 

 them, so that we cannot hatch wonders with them with half 

 the effect produced by employing a simple lens. 



I have observed, that all hypothetical theories, and pre- 

 conceived notions, are somehow always best confirmed by 

 deep single lenses ; and a degree of scandal and ridicule has 

 thus been brought upon microscopists and microscopic science, 

 which really makes me ashamed of my trade. If I mistake 

 not, the witty author of the *' Miseries of Human Life" has 

 set down in his catalogue of human sufferings, that of reading 

 an impudent, lying, pompous account of some pretended micro- 

 scopic discovery, made under a tremendous high power. 



I have, in my paper on the *' Comparative Merits of the new 

 Microscopes," formerly published in this Journal, and also in 

 a Note to Mr. Pritchard's paper on Diamond Lenses, expressed 

 my own views of the relative powers of simple microscopes 



