62 
LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS ‘‘ LITTLE ANIMALS”’ 
have an account of him. He is about 50 years of age,’ but 
has already imployed 15 or 20 years in Observations as 
curious as these, which I have here related. His Parents 
designed him for a Chyrurgeon, which Profession he has 
exercised some time with Honor.’ And as he rightly 
conceived, that Anatomy was the foundation of that 
useful Art, and that Microscopes were highly serviceable 
to acquire the knowledge of it, he applied himself not only 
to perfect those that were already in use, but even to 
invent new ones, in which he has succeeded to admiration, 
having discovered amongst other things more kinds of 
invisible Animals, than the World before him knew there 
were visible ones: and withal made an anatomical descrip- 
tion of many of them. The perfection to which he has 
brought his Microscopes, has atforded him great light. 
For they are not big and cumbersom tools, as the ordinary 
ones ; but light and portable, consisting only of a glass 
or two at the end of a small and short tube,’ so that he 
may manage them, and apply them to the object, as easily 
as his own Hyes. And what is still more wonderful is, 
That tho his Glasses magnify the Objects far beyond any 
I have seen, yet they do not darken it.* To which if it 
be added, that he is an able Surgeon, and has made it his 
chief business during many years to dissect and view little 
Animals, Plants, Seeds, Eggs, Saps, and the like, his 
surprizing discoveries will become more credible. I know 
some are apt to imagine, that this curious Observer of 
Nature imposes at least upon himself, in several things 
* In May 1693 L. was, of course, in his 61st year. Perhaps de la Crose 
was reporting his recollection of the time when he was himself resident in 
Holland. 
* This is an extraordinary mistake: but no more remarkable or inex- 
plicable than that made by one of L.’s own distinguished modern fellow- 
countrymen (de Groot, 1910), who calls our hero “ physicist and surgeon of 
Haarlem”! (ef. p. 352 infra). 
An evident error. 
* These words confirm what T. Molyneux wrote in 1685. Cf. p. 58 
supra. 
