136 GLIMPSES OF NATURE. 



escaping our attention, I should be inclined to maintain 

 that they largely monopolise science to the exclusion 

 of the big things. We are beginning to find out, in 

 fact, that only by knowing something of the actions 

 which proceed in the lower byways of life can exist- 

 ence in the main be understood at all. Hence, if any 

 preparation for a knowledge of humanity be required, 

 1 should say one would find it in a microscopic study 

 of what the ditches contain, and of what a leaf harbours. 

 "The proper study of mankind is man," said the poet 

 of Twickenham. To this very proper aphorism (in 

 its way) science adds that the only safe preparation 

 for the study of mankind is the knowledge of what 

 lower life is and of what lower life does. 



The remark of my friend suggested that within the 

 compass even of human structures (and that strictly 

 following out Pope's aphorism) one may find many 

 phases of life such as will warrant the declaration 

 that to the microscope we owe a vast amount of our 

 knowledge of ourselves. It has often been asserted 

 that man is a microcosm a world within himself; 

 and this is highly true, if we apply the saying to the 

 microscopic structures of his frame. 



No sooner do we begin to investigate the composi- 

 tion of man's tissues than we discover that, so far 

 from a human being having any right to be regarded 

 as a single entity, he might claim a title to be con- 

 sidered a compound or colonial organism. One man 

 in his time is said by the Bard of Avon to play many 

 parts. Physiologically, it may be said, man is very 

 many parts or entities working together to form and 

 to maintain an harmonious whole. This statement 

 is easily proved. We do not speak without knowing 

 when we make such an assertion. 



