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CHAPTER VIII. 



Whether there is a best possible way of constructing the 

 stand, or mounting, fyc. of Microscopes (the specific pur- 

 pose or purposes to which they are to be applied being first 

 determined) ? 



BY C. R. GORING, M. D. 



I APPREHEND that the construction of all kinds of me- 

 chanical implements, tools, utensils, musical, philo- 

 sophical and mathematical instruments, &c. may be 

 reduced to fixed principles, and that one best possible 

 way of making them, may, and can be discovered, (when 

 the specific and particular end and object of their fabri- 

 cation is duly settled). It is otherwise with all those 

 manufactures which are of an ornamental nature, and 

 therefore subject to the caprice of taste and opinion ; and 

 also with every thing made for the gratification of any 

 of our senses, or for the ease and accommodation of our 

 personal wants. Thus it would be very absurd to pre- 

 tend that there is a best possible system of cooking, or 

 making caps and bonnets, unless we choose to assume 

 the position, that the specific end of cooking and mantua- 

 making being the gratification of the whims and fancies 

 of some particular individual, even these arts are reducible 



