THE ENVOY 385 
At all times the name of Leeuwenhoek has been mentioned 
with respect by those who have really made his acquaintance. 
Even general historical writers’ are sometimes aware that he 
was one of the phaenomena of the XVII Century: and even 
in his own lifetime his claims to recognition were conceded by 
biological and medical authors. Leeuwenhoek was no 
‘physician ” or “ surgeon ’’, as he has so often been ridiculously 
styled: nevertheless, he was already called “celebrated” in 
Roukema’s Dictionary of Famous Physicians as early as 1706, 
and he now has a whole section to himself in Banga’s History 
of Medicine and its Practitioners in Holland (1868) and in 
Hirsch’s Biographical Lexicon of Distinguished Doctors of all 
Times and Peoples (1886). The great and learned Leibniz 
paid attention to his discoveries, which were not without 
influence upon his own philosophy: indeed, the abstract 
‘““monads”’ of the Monadology are not altogether unrelated to 
Leeuwenhoek’s concrete “animalcules”.” But to trace 
Leeuwenhoek himself through all the misunderstandings and 
misquotations and muddles of the multitudinous authors who 
have utilized his discoveries for their own ends, is a task 
beyond my competence; and for my present purpose it is, 
fortunately, unnecessary. 
Leeuwenhoek will be finally judged by his own writings, 
and not by anything that other people say he wrote. He has left 
us a great mass of records—both published and unpublished 
from which we can now extract what we please. I have 
endeavoured to recover from them all his observations on the 
Protozoa and the Bacteria, and to set in order his inchoate and 
uncorrelated findings in a manner which may fairly convey 
their import and importance to present-day students. ‘To me 
his words, when judicially weighed in the scales of con- 
temporary and recent knowledge, prove conclusively that he 
was the first protozoologist and the first bacteriologist. He 
has had thousands of followers and imitators, and was pre- 
ceded by a few prophetic precursors; but his own true place 
in Protozoology and Bacteriology appears to me incontro- 
1 For example, Hallam in his Literatwre of Europe (published first in 
1837-9). 
2 Leibniz also mentions L. in his Théodicée (published in 1710). His 
correspondence with L. is discussed by Ehrenberg (1845): but the first author 
who appears to have realized Leibniz’s intellectual debt to L. is Radl (1905). 
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