The Electron Microscope in Biology^ 



By Ralph W. G. Wyckoff 



Science Attache, American Embassy, London 



[With 2 plates] 



Two RECENT DEVELOPMENTS ill tliG humaii mind have contributed to 

 produce modern natural science. One is a more acute sensory per- 

 ception and objective awareness of the outer world. The other is an 

 equally striking enlargement of the intellectual ability and willingness 

 of many men to deal with these clearer perceptions of Nature, to relate 

 them logically one to another, and to devise from these relationships 

 a consistent pattern of outer happenings. This enhanced sensory 

 awareness of external reality expressed itself in the painting and 

 sculpture of the Renaissance; and more or less simultaneously there 

 arose, sometimes in the same individual, that closer and more purpose- 

 ful observation of natural phenomena which was a root of modern 

 science. In art this clearer perception enriched immeasurably the 

 world of human values that art serves ; in science it began to furnish 

 that basis of external fact which must underlie any sound understand- 

 ing of the meaning of human existence. 



Only a rudimentary natural science could, however, have arisen 

 from such unaided observation, no matter how acute, or how care- 

 fully it was analyzed. The intimate knowledge we now possess of 

 the texture of the universe is the direct result of the invention and use 

 of instruments to extend and render ever more quantitative the limited 

 information our senses can supply. 



Vision is, of course, the sense that has taught us most about Nature ; 

 and it is therefore natural that instruments that extend its range 

 will have been most actively sought and most highly valued. It was 

 the telescope that gave a first practical demonstration of the essential 

 role of instruments ; the microscopes that began to be made soon after 

 started the equally important observation of fine structure which has 

 now become the chief preoccupation of modern science. Every branch 



' Siibstauce of a Friday Evening Discourse at tlie Royal Institution delivered on 

 December 11, 1953. Reprinted by permission from Nature, vol. 173, March 6, 1954. 



251 



