122 REVIEWS. 



of observation, even though it be vested in the person of Professor 

 Ehrenberg, whose real merits we wish fully to acknowledge, but to 

 whose many shortcomings we are, nevertheless, not blind. Science is 

 the religion of fact ; a religion without an orthodoxy, which knows no 

 altars, save those of truth and freedom. It becomes, then, her priests, 

 as a most sacred duty, to deprecate all prejudice, false praise, and per- 

 sonal idolatry. But, on the other hand, she does not Avithhold merit 

 where merit is due. Nor do we find among the detractors from the 

 fame of Ehrenberg the names of those discoverers whose investigations 

 offer the sole refutation we possess of not a few of his declared opinions.. 

 It is against the cowardly abuse of this great man by a host of empty 

 authors, parasites on the scientific substance of others, and who of them- 

 selves could never have pointed out one error in the writings of 

 him whom they assail, that we now desire to raise our voice. Of such 

 praise as it is in our power to give, Professor Ehrenberg does not stand 

 in need. His works fix an epoch in science. Erom them he may ap- 

 peal to the scanty knowledge of microscopic beings which existed before 

 his time, and point to what it has since become. His best witnesses are 

 his candid opponents. They know the armoury wherein their most 

 successful weapons have been forged.* 



Furthermore, we should not forget, what a glance at systematic 

 treatises is, indeed, sufficient to show, that our views as to the nature 

 and relations of the " Infusoria" are even now in the midst of a com- 

 plete revolution ; a revolution, too, which, to speak metaphorically, has 

 seen its deposed monarch, its Girondists, its Men of the Mountain, but 

 whose all- victorious despot is yet to come. 



The dismemberment of the vast assemblage of diverse beings some- 

 what hastily brought together by Ehrenberg under the common title of 

 Infusoria, has proved, indeed, no light task to those naturalists by whom 

 it has been attempted. Now, however, we may fairly conclude that 

 all these organisms fall under one or other of two very dissimilar sec- 

 tions, the animal and the vegetable. 



* A curious analogy may be traced between the contributions of Ehrenberg to our 

 knowledge of minute organisms, and the researches of Schleiden and Schwann in the 

 still wider field of general histology.* The great works of both were published about the 

 same year, 1 838. Both rendered services of the utmost value to science, though the funda- 

 mental " conceptions of structure" of Ehrenberg, as of Schleiden and Schwann, have since 

 been proved to be erroneous. The writings of both have not so much an actual as an 

 " historical value." In one respect, indeed, Schleiden and Schwann show an advantage 

 over their illustrious contemporary. They always appeal with sure confidence to the 

 study of development, and lose no opportunity of urging its primary importance. Had 

 Ehrenberg more frequently sought the aid of this all- potent test, he would not have per- 

 mitted Cohn, by his brilliant application of it in the case of Frotococcus pluvialis, to 

 offer oue of the most striking proofs of the insufficiency of a purely anatomical method 

 of reseach which has, perhaps, ever appeared. 



* For a concise criticism of these, last, see an Essay by Mr. Huxley, in Brit. & For. Med.-Chir. Rev., 

 Oct., 1S53. 



