THE SCIENCE 01 MICROSCOPY.- 3OI 



§& ihm Jt umm «f §\\mm\n^ 



H. E. FRIPP, M.D. 



OF the large number of persons who are interested in the 

 microscope, and place trust in it as an instrument of 

 research, few regard its performance in any other light than that of a 

 mechanical aid to sight, or believe that its use calls for any other 

 preparatory technical discipline than a little practice in manipulation. 

 And since its chief characteristic is '^magnifying power," its 

 optical importance is almost exclusively estimated in terms of this 

 function. Hence the claim of practical microscopy to be considered 

 a "science of observation," needing careful cultivation of the 

 observing faculties and adequate acquaintance with the general 

 theory of the microscope, is generally disregarded as an extravagant 

 supposition leading to an exaggerated view of the difficulties 

 attending its use. Microscopists constantly affirm that the re- 

 searches in which they avail themselves of this instrument, alone 

 deserve the name and character of special science — that is, of an 

 independent culture, shaping its own course, and determining its 

 own methods, aims, and limits, — and not a few plainly declare it 

 to be inconsistent with the received sense and meaning of the word^ 

 to characterise a mere act of observation as a science, and to qualify 

 so common an act by calling i a speciality. 



