XXV. 



ZTbe Worfeers of tbe 



SOME days ago a person remarked in my hearing that, 

 while science dealt with both the big things and the 

 little things of life and nature, it had in reality thrown 

 very little light indeed on the more intricate bodily 

 processes in virtue of which life is carried on. The 

 plaint of my friend was that science knew about 

 things " in the rough," but could not descend to take 

 cognisance, in the same degree, of things of minute 

 estate. 



" So much the worse for science and mankind at 

 large," I replied, " were your assertion true." As a 

 matter of fact, there is no field of inquiry which has 

 yielded such a large harvest to the truth-seeker of 

 late years as that of microscopic research. There is 

 scarcely a great discovery which has been made within 

 the past decade in which our knowledge of the infinitely 

 little, as shown forth by the microscope, has not figured 

 most prominently. Disease-germs and countless other 

 lower forms of life have been traced out in their 

 development and tracked to their origin. Living 

 things, whose dimensions are to be estimated by the 

 thousandth parts of inches, are as well-known to us 

 to-day, as is the ostrich or the elephant. 



So far from the " little things " of the universe 



