88 THE MICROSCOPE. 



selves in great abundance a few days after I had 

 left the vessel standing open." l 



14. The Microscope, then, in its widest range 

 over the vast and varied worlds of organized 

 beings which it submits to our study, gives no 

 support to the philosophers of our day who 

 would persuade us to believe in " spontaneous 

 generation" in " physiological development" in 

 the " transmutation of species" or in " organic 

 creation by law" Whoever receives such un- 

 philosophical hypotheses, can certainly with no 

 propriety be called an " unbeliever" Of him it 

 may rather be said in the words of the London 

 wit of our own century : " Why, he is the most 

 capacious believer that is to be found anywhere ! 

 He believes almost more than any other man. 

 He believes in no cause at all ; in the existence 

 of all things from all eternity, without any 

 beginning whatever that they could not be 

 otherwise than as they are !" 2 The minute in- 

 fusoria itself covers with ridicule the theories of 

 those who would make the genealogical Tree of 

 Creation to take root spring up bud blos- 

 som and bear fruit, after this fashion,, Fire- 



1 Pritchard's History of In f us. Animalcules, pp. 54-56. 



2 Lord John Russell's Life of Moore, vol. vi. p. 284. 



