1888.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 161 



If the foregoing precedents are not worthy to be followed, or if there are 

 not the good reasons alleged for occupying your attention as a society of 

 microscopists with such subjects as that announced, then I have, through an 

 error of judgment, fallen short of the full measure of my opportunities on this 

 occasion. 



In the following discourse I have endeavored to keep before me these con- 

 ditions : — I , to mention only such points as reasonably possess a general 

 interest, reserving the more technical results of my study for presentation at 

 the daily sessions; 2, to state and illustrate these facts clearly; and, 3, to 

 occupy a reasonable time. 



There is an almost universal desire on the part of the devotees of any par- 

 ticular art or science to date its origin in the remote past. Are we not apt to 

 esteem most highly that which bears the stamp of hoary antiquitv? I am 

 convinced that this is the case ; and yet I cannot justly claim that advantage 

 for my specialty. Other reasons must be alleged as a warrant for especial 

 attention to it. Still, the beginning of our knowledge of the simplest animals 

 was laid more than two hundred years ago. The microscope of that time 

 was indeed a primitive instrument. Its evolution had so far progressed that 

 it was something more than a toy. By its aid at that time was revealed, in partial 

 vision it is true, the grand fact that there exists beneath the waters of every man- 

 tled, festering pool or limpid stream, in lake or river, or in ocean depths alike, 

 myriads of invisibly minute beings, ceaselessly, noiselessly pursuing their 

 work unheeded. As the infinite variety of graceful forms and their strange 

 habits were more and more clearly comprehended, and as the knowledge of 

 a newly-revealed animal world increased, the enthusiasm of these earlv micros- 

 copists became exuberant, and with their enthusiasm grew their devotion to 

 nature and its Author — a consequence repeated in every student who in the 

 right spirit learns her lessons for himself by his own explorations. Men now 

 possessed, and were beginning to employ, constantly-improving microscopical 

 vision. It revealed a world of minute animals and plants, perfect in their 

 way, actuated and governed by principles and impulses not unlike those con- 

 trolling the macroscopic already known. In these animate atoms were seen' 

 anew, or for the first time, certain world problems, and there sprung up fresh 

 hope of their solutions. The origin and nature of life, what guiding intelligence 

 adjusts the varied relations and necessities of each and every minute creature 

 to its environment as truly and exactly as in the higher organic forms. More- 

 over, here and there a broad, unknown domain of nature was opened for 

 exploration by the human intellect, which, at that time, as it seems to us, was 

 in the attitude of the child toward nature, eager to know its facts and the reason 

 ~iv them ; seeking knowledge for the sake of knowing. There is no wonder 

 ■hat the early investigators of microscopic life were enthusiastic ; they had 

 '"Abundant reason for this directing sentiment. Their devotion and patience 

 lai^j yyeii tiie foundations of the science of a great branch of animals. Leu- 

 ^'^f'hock, Jablot, Baker, Trembly, Ledermiller, Perty, Muller, and Ehren- 

 '^^^'g orepared the way 'for the brilliant discoveries and broad generalizations 

 of a half century just passed by the renowned students of the simplest living 

 l)emgs. xhe present knowledge of the Protozoa does not compare unfavor- 

 ably witJ-i that of any other assemblage of animals, and is advancing as rapidly ; 

 this, too. when only comparatively few skilled workers can contribute to this 

 end, and, nioreover, these forms are of little or no practical use or importance. 

 Even thei.>- once supposed intimate relation, as a cause, to many distressing 

 maladies hc^g not been confirmed by recent research, but rather disproved, 

 except, perhaps, in the rare instances of certain blood parasites, or some ex- 

 ternal parasites of aquatic animals. There is, then, sufficient love of abstract 

 truth, sufiiciciiit enthusiasm in bringing to light new facts and endeavoring to 



