740 THE JIICROSCOPE. 



It would be a vain attempt were we to try to convey 

 to our readers any idea of the great discoveries which have 

 been made by the microscope, or of the important pur- 

 poses to which it has been applied. Second only to the 

 telescope, though in many respects superior to it, the 

 microscope transcends all other instruments in the scientific 

 value as well as in the social interest of its results. While 

 the human eye, the telescope and microscope combined, 

 enables us to enjoy and examine the scenery around us, to 

 study the forms of life with which we are more imme- 

 diately connected, it fails to transport us into the depth of 

 space, to throw into relief the planets and the stars, and 

 to indicate the forms and arrangements in the worlds of 

 life and motion, which distance diminishes and conceals. 

 To these mysterious abodes, so long unrevealed, the tele- 

 scope has at last conveyed us. It has shown us those 

 worlds and systems, of which our own earth and our own 

 system are the types ; but it fails to enlighten us respecting 

 the nature and constitution of the celestial bodies, and the 

 forms of life for which they are created. 



In its downward scrutiny, as well as in its upward 

 aspirations, the human eye has equally failed. In the 

 general view which it commands of animal, vegetable, and 

 mineral structures, it cannot reach those delicate organiza- 

 tions on which life depends, or those structures of inor- 

 ganic matter from which its origin and composition can be 

 derived. Into these mysterious regions, where the philo- 

 sopher has been groping his way, the microscope now 

 conducts him. The dark abodes of unseen life are lighted 

 up for his contemplation, — organizations of transcendent 

 beauty appeal to his wonder — new aspects of life, new 

 forms of being, new laws of reproduction, new functions 

 in exercise, reward the genius of the theoretical and 

 practical optician, and the skill and toil of the naturalist. 

 With wonders like these all nature is pregnant : the earth, 

 the ocean, and the air — times past and times present, now 

 surrender their secrets to the microscope. 



What we know at present, even of things the most near 

 and familiar to us, is so little in comparison of what we 

 know not, that there remains an illimitable scope for our 

 inquiries and discoveries ; and every step we take serves to 



