384 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS “ LITTLE ANIMALS” 
of his own discovering now bears his name:’ yet it has been 
bestowed—more or less permanently—upon a minute moth,’ a 
tiny mite,’ and an insignificant Australian flowering plant* .. . 
“cum rerum Natura nusquam magis quam wm minimis 
tota sit.” 
My personal estimate of Leeuwenhoek is based upon a 
study of his own works. [admit that [have not yet examined 
his numerous writings sufficiently, but I have read enough to 
realize that those people who ridicule him are generally 
ignorant, and usually reveal their own incompetence in the 
very act of denouncing his. Whilst professing to show us his 
faults they unintentionally pillory themselves. Leeuwenhoek 
and his disciples have now no need even to contradict state- 
ments such as “this physician described many things that he 
never saw,’ or “his assertions . . . sufficiently prove that 
he saw less through his microscope with his eyes than with 
his imagination:’’’? and nowadays we only laugh when we 
read this pronouncement by the self-appointed judge of the 
Royal Society—*‘ Lewenhoeck . . . had the good fortune 
to be one of the first People who worked at microscopical 
Observations, but we are to acknowledge at the same Time, 
that he has had the Honour of having stocked the Philo- 
sophical Transactions with more Errors than any one Member 
of it, excepting only his Successor in Peeping, Mr. Baker.” ° 
1 The name “ Pandorina leuwenhoekii’’, proposed by Bory de St-Vincent 
(1826, p. 22), is an invalid synonym of Volvox globator Linnaeus: while the 
same author’s ‘‘ Esechielina lewwenhoekii”’ (1826, p. 78) has been engulfed 
in the synonymy of Rotifer vulgaris. 
2 Oecophora leeuwenhoekella [Tineidae] F. v. P. Schrank, 1802. For 
the various spellings of the specific name see Sherborn (1927). Cf. also Isis 
(1839), p. 192. 
3 Genus Leewwenhoekia Oudemans, 1911. 
4 Levenhookia pusilla Brown, 1810. In proposing the genus, Robert 
Brown says (in Latin) that he dedicates it ‘to the memory of the most 
famous micrographer, in whose works there are many most beautiful 
observations on the structure of vegetables.” Brown’s spelling of the 
generic name is curious, and is evidently an attempt to reconcile Dutch 
orthography with Latin and with English pronunciation. Later emendations 
(such as ‘‘Leevenhokia’”’ van Hall, 1834) can hardly be regarded as 
improvements. 
° Jourdan (1822), Biogr. Méd., V, 561. 
® John Hill (1751), p. 156. The reference is to Henry Baker (see 
p. 318 supra), one of Hill’s pet aversions. 
