THE AUTHOR’S EPISTLE TO THE READER i a 
only by chance or inspiration. Consequently, much still 
remains to be unearthed. I have only scraped the surface here 
and there—through lack of opportunity to delve more deeply— 
and must reluctantly leave the rest of the work to others. You 
will therefore please remember, dear Reader, that my present 
“life” of our great Delvenaar makes no pretence to be more 
than a preliminary collection of materials for the use of some 
more competent future historian. 
About Leeuwenhoek himself the greatest ignorance still 
prevails—not only in England but even in his native country. 
Only one full-length biography (by Haaxman) has yet been 
printed ; though Bovrtet, van Haastert, Halbertsma, Harting, 
and more recently Bouricius, Schierbeek, and others, have 
published many valuable data. ‘T'o Haaxman’s booklet all 
students will forever be deeply indebted: but none can swppose 
that the Rotterdam apothecary, writing more than half a 
century ago, was in a position to say the last word about 
Leeuwenhoek, or to appraise his scientific achievements at their 
true worth. Outside of Holland little has been written about 
him which is not almost comically inaccurate. The biographi- 
cal dictionaries are stuffed with ridiculous statements, and 
most historians of biology have hitherto been content to misprint 
their mistakes. 
Leeuwenhoek himself is, indeed, now almost unknown— 
notwithstanding his celebrity. If yow doubt wt, dear Reader, 
go to his native town of Delft, and make inquiries for yourself. 
Ask any man wm the street about him, and he will probably 
direct you to a modern road which now bears his name—a 
road outside the old town in which he lived, and leading to 
the railway station. Or your informant will possibly send you 
to a spot where a bronze effigy of our hero now hangs on the 
railings surrounding the playground of a girls school. “Here”’, 
you may read, ‘‘ Leeuwenhoek, the discoverer of the Infusoria, 
lived and worked in the year 1675 "—the year (presumably) of 
the discovery. Yet he never lived in that street, nor was the 
discovery made wn that year. The whole memorial is mistaken 
and misplaced. If you still doubt my words (when I say that 
Leeuwenhoek zs comparatively unknown, even to his own 
countrymen), let me tell you a story for whose truth I can 
vouch. A few years ago, a party of Dutch physicians visited 
the Institute where I work. One of them, on hearing from 
a colleague that I had been studying Leeuwenhoek’s letters, 
