386 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS “LITTLE ANIMALS”’ 
vertible. He was the originator of everything we now know 
about ‘‘ microbes ’’, and of all that will ever be known about 
these organisms. To say that he is “not the founder of 
microbiology . . . although he was the first to see bacteria, 
yeasts, and protozoa”? may sound very knowing, and may 
satisfy those who seek paradox and literary effect: but every 
workaday bacteriologist and protozoologist knows that it is 
sheer nonsense. One might equally well say that Columbus 
did not discover the New World because he left no account of 
New York. 
In the foregoing pages I have done my best to portray 
Leeuwenhoek and to chronicle some of his great discoveries 
anew in his own words. If I have also attempted to represent 
other leading figures in the historic scene wherein he himself 
appears, it is because I realize that he can be recognized in 
his true character only when the other actors are ranged 
beside him on the stage. It is not for me, or any other living 
man, to design or paint the scenery or to dress the players or 
even to clap or hiss their exits and their entrances. I can 
but strive to discharge with fidelity the humbler office of the 
man who manipulates the limelight—whose duty is to show, 
in just illumination, the performers in a drama which I neither 
did nor ever could compose, and of whose intricate plot I have 
but the roughest working knowledge. 
I have always endeavoured to regard Leeuwenhoek 
objectively and dispassionately, but I am conscious that I 
have not always succeeded: for whenever I listen to his talk 
about “little animals” I am carried away by the unintentional 
eloquence of his discourse. He speaks an ungrammatical and 
old-fashioned language which is not my mother-tongue, and 
which I have learned painfully and as yet imperfectly : but he 
also echoes a language which I hear oftener than any other— 
that of the “little animals” themselves. I have spent all my 
working life trying to understand them, but I still know no 
more than old Antony knew—just enough, in fact, to inspire 
me with the enthusiasm to continue listening and labouring, 
but never enough to feel satisfied with my interpretations. 
I have unbounded admiration for Leeuwenhoek because he 
heard and interpreted things that I, unaided, could never have 
discovered, and hit on problems—during quiet nights in his 
own private closet—of which neither he nor I can ever know 
the final solution. 
