68 PHENOMENA OF PLANT-LIFE. 



It was said by La Place that certain discoveries in 

 mathematics had lengthened the life of the astronomer, 

 by enabling him to realize new privileges and new 

 delights. As truly may it be said that the invention 

 of the microscope has lengthened the life of the phy- 

 siologist. It is more than foreign travel, it takes us 

 not only into countries that we have read of, and seen 

 pictures of, but into realms peopled with undiscovered 

 wonder, and has the additional enchantment of bear- 

 ing us ever onwards, by making us feel that though 

 we can never get into the centre of things, we may 

 yet be always approaching nearer, and witnessing 

 new miracles. There is as much, perhaps vastly more, 

 in the infinite little for man to learn and to be charmed 

 with, as he may find, or than he can grasp, perhaps, 

 in the infinite great and distant. Man stands midway 

 between two worlds in more senses than one. If he 

 can look backwards and forwards as regards time, and 

 feel equidistant alike from beginning and end, so may 

 he, by the help of those wonderful instruments, the 

 telescope and the microscope, perceive himself to be 

 midway as to his place in nature. 



