Microscopic illustrations of a few new, popular and diverting living objects : with their natural history, &c. &c.; conjoined with accurate descriptions of the latest improvements in the new microscopes; the best methods of constructing their mountings, apparatus, &c.; and complete instructions for using them / by C.R. Goring and Andrew Pritchard.

  • Goring, C. R., 1792-1840.
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Microscopic illustrations of a few new, popular and diverting living objects : with their natural history, &c. &c.; conjoined with accurate descriptions of the latest improvements in the new microscopes; the best methods of constructing their mountings, apparatus, &c.; and complete instructions for using them / by C.R. Goring and Andrew Pritchard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    49/130 (page 33)
    CHAPTER IV. Whether there is a best possible way of constructing the stand, or mounting, 8gc, of microscopes (the specific pur- pose or purposes to which they are to be applied being first determined) ? I apprehend that the construction of all kinds of mechanical implements, tools, utensils, musical, philosophical and mathe- matical instruments, &c. may be reduced to fixed principles, and that one best possible way of making them, may, and can be discovered, (when the specific and particular end and object of their fabrication is duly settled). It is otherwise with all those manufactures which are of an ornamental nature, and therefore subject to the caprice of taste and opinion ; and also with every thing made for the gratifica- tion of any of our senses, or for the ease and accommo- dation of our personal wants. Thus it would be very absurd to pretend, that there is a best possible system of cooking, or making caps and bonnets, unless we choose to assume the position, that the specific end of cooking and mantua-making, being the gratification of the whims and fancies of some particular individual, even these arts are reduceable to fixed principles (such as they are). Every thing connected with the fine arts always resolves itself into a matter of opinion, about which it is perfectly useless D