Page:Reflections on the decline of science in England - Babbage - 1830.pdf/191

 roient préserver les observateurs les plus exercés, et celui qui ne produiroit que des angles toujours parfaitment d'accord auroit été singulièrement bien servi par les circonstances ou ne seroit pas bien sincère."—Base de Système Metrique, Discours Preliminaire, p. 158.

This desire for extreme accuracy has called away the attention of experimenters from points of far greater importance, and it seems to have been too much overlooked in the present day, that genius marks its tract, not by the observation of quantities inappreciable to any but the acutest senses, but by placing Nature in such circumstances, that she is forced to record her minutest variations on so magnified a scale, that an observer, possessing ordinary faculties, shall find them legibly written. He who can see portions of matter beyond the ken of the rest of his species, confers an obligation on them, by recording what he sees; but their knowledge depends both on his testimony and on his judgment. He who contrives a method of rendering such atoms visible to ordinary observers, communicates to mankind an instrument of discovery, and stamps his own observations with a character, alike independent of testimony or of judgment.