204 THE MICROSCOPIC WORLD. 



inferior to us in the scale of beings, with which we are 

 connected without understanding what it is 1 and is it 

 difficult to faith to admit the word of Scripture con- 

 cerning a connexion with a world superior to us?" 



When we consider the animal kingdom from this 

 point of view, and further reflect that each of the species 

 of which it consists is as isolated from every other 

 species, and forms to itself as much a world within its 

 own borders, as does the human family, the co-exist- 

 ence of innumerable phases of being, in the presence of 

 each other, is more and more wonderful, and may well 

 lead us to infer the reality of things beyond our senses 

 to perceive, and but dimly revealed to our reason ; and 

 yet we see but a little way into the wonders of creation, 

 if we confine our researches to objects visible to the 

 unassisted eye. 



The improvements effected of late years in the micro- 

 scope, may well be said to have opened to us a material 

 world of whose existence we should otherwise be wholly 

 ignorant. The number of species of animals and plants 

 now known, whose forms are so minute that they are 

 individually invisible to the naked eye, and only appre- 

 ciable when collected together in masses, is very great ; 

 and the catalogue is daily enlarging as the waters of 

 the sea, and of lakes and ponds, are more carefully sub- 

 jected to examination. What to the naked eye seems 

 like a green, or brownish slimy scum, attached to the 

 stalks of water-plants, or floating on the surface of stag- 

 nant pools, displays to the microscope a series of ele- 

 gant and curious forms, endowed with a most perfect 

 symmetry and delicate structure of parts, each acting 



