The fact was
that I did not know how to use some of my scientific accessories,--
never having been taught microscopies,--and those whose use I
understood theoretically were of little avail, until by practice I
could attain the necessary delicacy of handling. Still, such was the
fury of my ambition, such the untiring perseverance of my experiments,
that, difficult of credit as it may be, in the course of one year I
became theoretically and practically an accomplished microscopist.
During this period of my labors, in which I submitted specimens of
every substance that came under my observation to the action of my
lenses, I became a discoverer,--in a small way, it is true, for I
was very young, but still a discoverer. It was I who destroyed
Ehrenberg's theory that the _Volcox globator_ was an animal, and
proved that his "monads" with stomachs and eyes were merely phases
of the formation of a vegetable cell, and were, when they reached
their mature state, incapable of the act of conjugation, or any true
generative act, without which no organism rising to any stage of life
higher than vegetable can be said to be complete. It was I who
resolved the singular problem of rotation in the cells and hairs of
plants into ciliary attraction, in spite of the assertions of
Mr. Wenham and others, that my explanation was the result of an
optical illusion.
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