116 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. 
