Il6 CELL THEORIES. 



judgment on similar phenomena. Possibly, the 

 just zeal at the present day for accurate infor- 

 mation tends to lead to an undervaluing of the 

 faculty by which observations are translated. 

 Every man is obliged to translate what he sees. 

 No doubt he ought to distinguish carefully in his 

 own mind the appearances seen from his trans- 

 lation of them ; but no man ever did or ever will 

 give a description of a complex microscopic ap- 

 pearance so as exactly to reflect the appearances 

 seen, uncoloured by the element of judgment ; 

 and much less is it possible to found a statement 

 on a variety of observations which is not largely 

 dependent on the attitude of the observer's mind. 

 One observation has its effect in modifying the 

 translation of another ; and it is greatly due to this 

 that many microscopic objects of a corpuscular 

 nature, or what are still called cells, are capable 

 of being interpreted very differently now as com- 

 pared with the way in which they were looked 

 at twenty years ago. Formerly, corpuscles round 

 which no cell-wall was demonstrated were too 

 easily supposed to have one although it was 

 invisible, or were regarded as exceptions to a 

 general rule ; now they are viewed with different 

 eyes, and taken as proofs that the cell-wall is 

 unimportant. 



