VIES OF THE MICROSCOPIC WORLD. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



" The one told me of the insignificance of the world I tread upon. The other redeems 

 it from its insignificance ; for it tells me that in the leaves of every forest, and in the flowers 

 of every garden, and in the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds teeming with life, and 

 numberless as are the glories of the firmament. The one is constantly widening the circle of 

 His territory. The other is as constantly filling up its separate portions with all that is rich, 

 and various, and exquisite." Chalmers. 



SCIENCE has presented the world with two most noble instruments, which 

 will ever be ranked among the proudest triumphs of the intellect and skill of 

 man the telescope and microscope. The thousand combinations of machinery 

 that stand in the work-shops of art, and seem to be almost gifted with intelli- 

 gence, so perfectly do they perform their appointed tasks, are at the best but 

 instruments by which we subject to our use powers and agencies long since 

 known. Through their means we can apply to new purposes and new ends the 

 resources that mankind have possessed for ages, and subdue the physical world 

 to ourselves ; but they are powerless to extend the limits of our knowledge, or 

 unfold one page in the bright volume of creation, ever mirroring the glorious 

 attributes of Divinity. The portion of the universe with which we are con- 

 versant, is as large without them as with them ; they add no new regions to the 

 field of knowledge, nor reveal to our astonished gaze worlds and existences, 

 curious organizations, harmonies and forms of beauty hitherto unknown. 



Not so with the telescope and microscope ; they have a higher office to fulfil, 

 and are rather the companions than the slaves of man, ministering to the de- 

 mands of his mind and not to the wants of his body. They accompany the 

 flight of genius in its glorious imaginings, and often enable it to give, to what 

 may appear to others a wild and visionary conception, a reality and permanence 

 as enduring as the universe itself; or they may take the lead, and on a sudden 

 dazzle the beholder with visions of such rare magnificence and beauty, that 

 truth surpasses fiction, and the fairy dreams of imagination are more than 

 realized. 



