The Microscope and its Revelations

Abstract

ABSTRACT It was only to be expected that if Dr. Carpenter undertook to write a book on the Microscope, it would be a good one, and at least not inferior to any that had hitherto been published. Such was our anticipation, and we have not been disappointed. The book is even better than we could have hoped for, for knowing as we do the great amount of literary and teaching labour performed by Dr. Carpenter, we are astonished to find that he could secure the time for producing a book in every way so complete and faithful a transcript of the subject to which it is devoted as the present volume. This work is not, in fact, as its name might seem to imply, a simple introduction to the use of the Microscope, but a treatise on this instrument, describing the principles of its construction, the various forms which are employed, their adaptations to special uses, and a survey of the various departments of science in which it has been successfully employed. The introduction consists of a sketch of the service rendered by the Microscope to science. The author indicates here the various facts observed by means of the Microscope, and points out their value as the foundation of philosophical reasoning in all those classes of phenomena to which they are related. We should have been glad to have quoted the whole of the concluding part of these observations devoted to the educational value of the Microscope. They are so applicable to the educational demands of the present day, and so in accordance with the aspirations of those who regard science and scientific research as only means to the higher, end of the intellectual and moral development of man, that we can but commend them to all interested in the subject of education. We must, however, find space for the introductory remarks.