THE STORY OF ANIMAL LIFE 



CHAPTER I 



THE STORY OF ANIMAL LIFE 



IF the microscope had never been invented, the 

 Story of Animal Life, as it is related by modern 

 science, could never have been told. It is to the 

 microscope that we owe our knowledge of in- 

 numerable little animals that are too small to be- 

 seen by the unassisted eye ; and it is to the mi- 

 croscope that we owe the most important part 

 of our knowledge about the bodies of larger ani- 

 mals, about the way in which they are built up, 

 and the uses of their different parts. The earlief 

 opticians who toiled, one after another, to bring 

 the microscope to perfection, never dreamed, in 

 their most ambitious moments, of the value of 

 the gift that their labour was to confer upon 

 mankind. For the microscope alone has made it 

 possible for men of science to study the world of 

 living things. This is the value of honest and 

 thorough work in almost every department of in- 

 tellectual labour; that it builds a firm and sure 

 though perhaps hidden foundation for the loftier 

 and more perfect work of after days. 



The microscope has shown us the intimate 

 structure of every organ of the animal body ; and 



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