Condition of Microscopy in England. By Frank Crisp. 127 
though long experience and habit have enabled us (apparently) to 
dispense with any such reasoning in the case of ordinary vision. 
The appreciation of this necessity has in modern times been a little 
lost sight of, and there has been too great a tendency to depend on 
mere sense, instead of on sense and reason combined, or, in other 
words, to merely view the object rather than to investigate its true 
nature. “ The impressions of sense,” says Whewell, “ unconnected 
by some rational and speculative principle, can only end in a 
practical acquaintance with individual objects.” 
For this reasoning process data are in the first instance 
required. These data, obtained from a systematic and scientific 
investigation and recording of the varied experiences of microscopic 
vision, considered, so to say, in the abstract, are of the highest 
importance, and would in time serve to render microscopic obser- 
vation almost wholly free from the fallacies and uncertainty which 
now beset it. 
Although it is a stereotyped expression of our authors that in 
the case of the microscope “ seeing is not believing,” the subject 
is left with the vague warning, that no rules can be given for 
the avoidance of such errors, since they can only be escaped by 
the discriminative power which education and habit confer.” * 
I venture to think, however, that there can be no dijficulty in 
framing such rules. It is only necessary that microscopists who 
have acquired the power referred to should record the results of 
their discrimination and experience. 
If each observer keeps the results of his observations for his 
own exclusive use, little or no advance will of course be possible ; 
but progress will be greatly accelerated if such records are made, 
for new workers are able to take up their investigations where their 
predecessors left off, and not only avoid the waste of time and 
misdirection of energy involved in going again over ground already 
exhausted, but also the discouragement which necessarily arises 
from the uncertainty whether what they propose to do has not 
been done before. One of the most useful offices of such a Society 
as ours is the assistance it is able to give to this object, so that it 
is not necessary that anyone should write a complete treatise on 
the subject, but by means of our ‘ Proceedings ’ can note isolated 
facts for the use of future students. 
The phenomena to be investigated range over a very wide field, 
and it is not possible within the limits of this paper to present 
a complete analysis of the subjects in regard to which systematic 
investigation would be valuable. 
Among them would be the appearances presented in conse- 
quence of the refraction of light by objects of various regular or 
irregular forms, spherical or cylindrical, with waved or other 
* Carpenter, 5th ed., p. 195. 
