ITS APPLICATIONS AND CAPABILITIES. 147 



must for centuries to come call forth all the 

 resources of science, and summon to the Micro- 

 scope intellects of the highest order. We can 

 hardly look for discoveries of great novelty in 

 the planetary and sidereal systems. Telescopes 

 have nearly reached their limits in point of 

 size, if not in point of perfection, and it would 

 be presumptuous to hope that we shall ever 

 acquire any knowledge of the structure, or of 

 the inhabitants of the worlds above us. The 

 sciences of optics, mechanics, hydrostatics, and 

 pneumatics, have assumed, more or less, a sta- 

 tionary character, and it must, therefore, be 

 from the other departments of knowledge that 

 a rich harvest of discovery is to be realized. 



" The Science of Life, however, the abode of 

 instinct and intelligence, has a character essen- 

 tially nobler than them all. Its objects are 

 infinite in number, and exciting in interest ; 

 and it will require ages to discover and to de- 

 velop the countless organizations of being, and 

 the strange functions of life, yet concealed from 

 our view. The Microscope, imperfect though 

 it be, is the instrument by which these great 

 results will be achieved ; and when it has ac~ 



