16 



microscope. As we all know, the instrument is not the device 

 of one man or one a.i*e, but it is the outcome of numberless 

 inventors and improvers, commencing, say, with Galileo, who, 

 Viviani informs us, sent a microscope to Sigismund, King of 

 Poland, in 1612. 



The possession of a microscope, not as a plaything but as 

 a companion— I mean as an instrument to be used for honest 

 and continuous investigation — places within the power of a 

 non-professional man a means of investigating nature's secrets 

 otherwise utterly unknown to him, and indicates lines of 

 inquiry which the professional man has neither the time 

 nor inclination to pursue. One has only to commence his 

 researches in order to find out the superabundant riches 

 that lie on all sides of him ; and to lament, too, the shortness 

 of life — so much to be attained, so little acquired ! It would 

 be well if the spirit of pure commercialism could be controlled 

 by a power truly cognisant of man's place and destiny, could 

 be made to understand that existence and life, animal and 

 man, accumulation and wisdom, idolatry and lawful pursuit, 

 are not terms of equal value or have any relation whatsoever. 

 Thousands of scholars, not, say, of Oxford or Cambridge, but 

 of the University of Experience, qualified by reason of pinched 

 means, clear heads, and dogged wills, men who have been 

 forced to know the value of things, are to-day quietly pursuing 

 the study of the great mysteries that surround them, and more 

 especially that chief of mysteries, the phenomenon of vital 

 existence. It makes them none the less good servants, 

 considerate masters, successful traders, keen competitors. 

 The layman claims scientific inquiry as his legitimate field, 

 simply because he himself is part of nature (although above 

 it), and he has a right to know himself and what is akin to 

 him. It keeps, doubtless, many a man from despair, and I am 

 confident it cheers and ennobles many a life. Allow me to 

 illustrate this to you : — 



It is, say, early summer time. The day has been an 

 arduous one. Business relations have proved awkward ; or 

 the markets have been depressed ; or rates have proved pro- 

 hibitive. Perhaps on the contrary one has lived at high 



