8o BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 



His grandfather and his great-grandfather were Delft brewers, 

 and his grandmother a brewer's daughter. The family were 

 doubtless wealthy. His schooling seems to have been brought 

 to a close at the age of sixteen, when he was *' removed to a 

 clothing business in Amsterdam, where he filled the office of 

 bookkeeper and cashier." After a few years he returned to 

 Delft, and at the age of twenty-two he married, and gave 

 himself up largely to studies in natural history. Six years 

 after his marriage he obtained the appointment mentioned 

 above. He was twice married, but left only one child, a 

 daughter by his first wife. In the old church at Delft is a 

 monument erected by this daughter to the memory of her 

 father. 



He led an easy, prosperous, but withal a busy life. The 

 microscope had recently been invented, and for observation 

 with that new instrument Leeuwenhoek showed an avidity 

 am^ounting to a passion. 



"That he was in comiortable, if not affluent, circum- 

 stances is clear from the character of his writings; that he 

 was not troubled by any ver}' anxious and responsible duties 

 is certain from the continuity of his scientific work; that he 

 could secure the services of persons of influence is discernible 

 from the circumstances that, in 1673, De Graaf sent his first 

 paper to the Royal Society of London; that in 1680 the same 

 society admitted him as fellow; that the directors of the East 

 India Company sent him specimens of natural history, and 

 that, in 1698, Peter the Great paid him a call to inspect his 

 microscopes and their revelations." 



Leeuwenhoek seems to have been fascinated by the mar- 

 vels of the microscopic world, but the extent and quality of 

 his work lifted him above the level of the dilettante. He 

 was not, like Malpighi and Swammerdam, a skilled dissector, 

 but turned his microscope in all directions; to the mineral 

 as well as to the vegetable and animal kingdoms. Just when 



