The PreHiflenfs Address. Jiij If. G. Plimw.er. 125 



laade with such ;,'la.sse.s as, ma;^^riifyirj;^ but moderately, exhibited 

 the object witli tlie most perfect brightness and distinction." We 

 had to re-learn this, and get rid of y^ inch, and even higher 

 power, oljjectives not so many years ago ! But it was not only 

 the glasses, it was his "great judgment and experience in the 

 manner of using them," as Foulkes says, which enabled him U) see 

 so much that had never been seen before or so well. Foulkes also 

 pays a tribute to his extraordinary skill in the preparation of his 

 objects, and was aware of " a very sensible difference " in the 

 clearness of an object when prepared Ijy himself instead of by 

 Leeuwenhoek. 



With this simple instrument Leeuwenhoek discoNered a new 

 world, new worlds for us : he saw for the first time Infusoria, 

 Rotifers, a Foraminifer, and Bacteria ; he laid the foundations of 

 what we call histology and embryology ; and he saw and described 

 much besides. Now it is the seeing a thing for the first tim<) that 

 is difficult : to see something that does not yet Ijear a name ; for 

 as people are usually constituted it is the name that first makes a 

 thing visible to them : that which has once been seen is quite 

 easy to see again, but the recognition of that which is not known 

 needs the possession and use of rare and liigh qualities. Xot 

 only the art of observation, but the genius of insight, the eye that 

 lets nothing pass unnoticed, are necessary. The great men are 

 those who discover things ; not those w^ho pile up fact-heaps with- 

 out object, but those who create principles of knowledge which 

 enable us to compass better the world we are in, and so raise 

 higher the pitch of human power. Bacon taught us to add to 

 the substance of knowledge h>y closer observation, in the spirit of 

 inductive enquiry, and he never thought of a limit to the possi- 

 bilities of Science. Leeuwenhoek was of the same build, and he 

 achieved the impossible where the smaller minds of his time were 

 so sure of its impossibility, that they sat down }>efore difficulties 

 which he conquered. He often uses the word Xature in its 

 beautiful sense, that of the spirit of things that grow, and he saw 

 the difl'erence between these and the things that are made. 



Epictetus said that the men who threw light on things were of 

 two sorts: those who carried a torch, and those who carried a lantern. 

 The former are obvious, and noisy, leaders of parties and such like, 

 and most of them are extinfmished with their torches, or some- 

 times, tragically, their torch goes out before they do : the lantern- 

 bearers keep their lanterns better alight, and they often keep 

 aglow for those who come after. Leeuwenhoek was a representa- 

 tive lantern-bearer ; he carried his lantern a long while, ninety-one 

 years, and it has not yet gone out. The two greatest Societies of 

 the world— the Royal Society and the French Academy — confeired 

 their honours on him, and some of the greatest rulers of Europe 

 paused at Delft to see some of his work. These honours and the 



