244 Phytotomy founded [Book ii. 



were treated by him as accessories only to the coarser histo- 

 logical relations with which he chiefly occupied himself. 



These two works of Malpighi and Grew, so important not 

 only for botany but for the whole range of natural science, 

 were not followed during the course of the next hundred and 

 twenty years by a single production, which can claim in any 

 respect to be of equal rank with them ; that long time was a 

 period not of progress but of steady retrogression, as we shall 

 see in the next chapter. But before the beginning of the 

 1 8th century Anton von Leeuwenhoek 1 made some contri- 

 butions to the knowledge of the details of vegetable anatomy, 

 if not exactly to the settling of very important points in it ; 

 he communicated his observations on animal and vegetable 

 anatomy in numerous letters to the Royal Society of London, 

 and these appeared for the first time in a collected form in 

 Delft in 1695 under the title of 'Arcana naturae.' It is not 

 easy to gain a clear idea of Leeuwenhoek's phytotomic 

 knowledge from his scattered statements. He too discussed 

 the less minute anatomy of fruits, seeds and embryos, and 

 among other things he made occasional observations on 



1 Leeuwenhoek's observations in animal anatomy were perhaps more 

 important than those which he made in botany. Carus (' Geschichte der 

 Zoologie,' p. 399) says of him : ■ While Malpighi used the microscope with 

 system and in accordance with the requirements of a series of investigations, 

 the instrument in the hands of the other famous microscopist of the 17th 

 century was more or less a means of gratifying the curiosity excited in 

 susceptible minds by the wonders of a world which had hitherto been 

 invisible. Still the discoveries, which were the fruit of an assiduous use of 

 the microscope continued during fifty years, embraced many subjects and 

 were important and influential. Anton von Leeuwenhoek was born in Delft 

 in 1632. Being intended for trade, he had not the advantage of a learned 

 education and is said even to have been ignorant of Latin ; his favourite 

 occupation was the preparing superior lenses, with which he incessantly ex- 

 amined new objects without being guided at any time by a scientific plan. 

 The Royal Society of London, to whom he communicated his observations, 

 made him a member of their body. He died in his native town in 1723, 

 being ninety years of age. 



