ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 333 



little else than attend the meetings to learn what they can, study up 

 and present different subjects of interest in papers, or more informally, 

 and continue in this way. After a while they will find others coming 

 forward, and the society will grow. If the meetings can be made 

 instructive, members will be sure to attend. If they are dull, and if 

 nothing is done to make the time pass profitably as well as pleasantly, 

 so that members will feel that it is worth while to attend, the society 

 might as well disband." 



"What is a Microscopist ? " * — Some " microscopist " has (we 

 hope unwittingly) given mortal ofience to a writer in ' Science,' as 

 it is evident that the following could only have been penned under 

 the severest provocation. 



"What is a microscopist? First and last, an amateur who 

 rejoices in the beautiful variety of microscopical specimens ; one who 

 treasures slides in the exact centre of which is a ring of cement neatly 

 put on, and holding a cover-glass under which lies some fine test- 

 object, — a delicate diatom, a Podura scale, a bit of tissue the vessels 

 of which are injected with gorgeous red, a polarizing crystal : in short, 

 almost any tiny scrap of the universe, if so it be pretty in the 

 pattern of its shape and colour. These same treasured slides must 

 have neatly bordered labels, and be catalogued and stored by a special 

 system. The microscopist is one who has a formidable and extensive 

 deal of brass stand, which can hold together a cabinet of appliances ; 

 and he will display the most admirable patience in getting them in 

 position, until at last he sees the specimen, and is ready to clean and 

 pack away his apparatus. His series of objectives is his glory ; and 

 he possesses a fifteenth of Smith and Brown, which will resolve a 

 band of Nobert's not to be resolved by the objectives of any of his 

 friends. His instrument is his pet: about it his interest centres, 

 while the direction of his studies is determined, not by any natural 

 bond between the objects, but by the common quality of minuteness. 

 Is it not curious ? Imagine any one deliberately setting out to study 

 whatever he could cut with a knife. We should pity the man who 

 chopped up the sciences according to the instrument he used. We 

 cannot be brought to regard anatomy as a department of cutlery, nor 

 can we seriously admit histology as a department of microscopy. 



Scientific men have been very lenient towards the microscopists ; 

 and yet the latter, who have long been allowed to march as hangers- 

 on to the regular scientific army, have gradually lagged behind. The 

 army has grown, and divided into many separate corps, traversing 

 the country of the unknown in all directions, and the microscopist 

 knows not whither to follow. If he turns in any direction, he must 

 join with the special work there, and can glean only in one field : he 

 is no longer the universal gatherer. One must be of the army to be 

 with it, and the forces are too scattered for any hanger-on to flit from 

 one division to another. The would-be microscopist has no place 

 among scientific investigators. He must enlist in one company and 

 there remain, or else be content to rank as an amateur, and not as a 

 scientific man." 



* Science, v. (1885) p. 164. 



