THE AUTHOR’S EPISTLE TO THE READER 9 
bacteria is glaringly inaccurate. His fame has consequently 
suffered, though the reputations of his translators and traducers 
are bound to suffer far more in the end. If I succeed only in 
showing you his own immeasurable superiority over all his 
commentators (including, of course, myself), my work will not 
have been wholly wasted. 
And now, dear Reader, after prejudicing my case with these 
disparaging remarks, Imust cast myself wpon your mercy. I 
am forced to confess that, had I fully understood the difficulties 
of my present undertaking at the outset, I would never have 
embarked upon it: for it is a work suited to a linguist, his- 
torian, antiquary, and man of leisure, and unhappily I possess 
none of these necessary qualifications. The only qualification 
which I can justly claim is that I have spent all my time and 
energies, all my life, in studying the micro-organisms which 
Leeuwenhoek discovered ; and consequently I imagine that I 
know the subject-matter of his writings on protozoa and bacteria 
as no mere scholar or philologist can ever hope to know it. I 
freely admit that my knowledge of Dutch, Latin, Greek, French, 
German, Italian, and even English, is unscholarly and defective : 
but I venture to assert that nobody, however skilled he may be 
in these tongues, can ever comprehend Leeuwenhoek’s writings 
on protozoology and bacteriology unless he be himself a working 
protozoologist and bacteriologist. And this I conceive to be the 
primary and indispensable qualification for anybody who would 
rightly interpret his discoveries in these disciplines. But no 
man can do everything : and a modern protozoologist has little 
time for studying the classics or for learning languages. He 
has not even time to read all the current literature on his own 
subject. I can but plead, therefore, that my knowledge of 
Dutch and Latin and English would (I hope) have been greater 
uf Thad not applied all my chief energies, all day and every 
day, to the practical study of protozoa and bacteria. The study 
of Leeuwenhoek ?s really an occupation—to use his own words— 
“for a whole man, which my circumstances did not allow of : 
and I have devoted only my spare time to rt”. 
Yet very seldom, dear Reader, in the course of my working 
life have I had anything that you could fairly call “ spare time”. 
For many years I have had to work for seven days in every week 
and for fifty weeks in every year at my own researches : conse- 
quently, I have had little opportunity to edit Leeuwenhoek’s— 
or even to read his voluminous writings. Most of the lines 
