154 MICROSCOPIC ILLUSTRATIONS. 



of genius would it not shew, to copy a good thing which 

 had been invented by another man ! 



It cannot be denied, moreover, that there really is a great 

 deal of trouble in getting up new philosophical instru- 

 ments of all sorts. There are fresh patterns to be made, 

 and tried, and re-made ; workmen to instruct afresh, and 

 after all, particular parts of the instrument may not fulfil 

 the intended purpose, and must be remodelled; all of 

 which circumstances occasion a great deal of annoyance 

 and expense, and naturally render men averse from the 

 adoption of new constructions 5 more especially as the 

 public at large never can be imbued with a sense of the 

 difficulties, expense, and loss of time, occasioned by 

 what are called out of the way jobs, and consequently 

 can never be induced to pay for them so as to remunerate 

 the artists employed. 



If it is indeed true, that conceit is given to man to 

 console him for want of talent, and that the less of one 

 of these qualities he may possess, the more he is likely 

 to have of the other, what must be the consequence, 

 should it happen that an individual, possessing seventy- 

 five parts of conceit and twenty-five of talent in the 

 hundred, comes in contact with something invented, or 

 recommended, by a man who has but twenty- five of the 

 former quality to seventy-five of the latter ? Is it likely 

 he will adopt it ? Never. He will imagine that he can 

 produce something infinitely better, and will be still 

 more strenuous in this opinion if he happens not to 



