VII 



INHERITANCE 



THE members of a Microscopical Society may find 

 very legitimate cause of congratulation in the pro- 

 gress that is being daily made in the use and 

 application of their favourite instrument. As 

 regards natural history the history of nature 

 it may rightly be said that the microscope has 

 effected a veritable revolution ; and this not in one 

 branch only, but in all. In Zoology, it has 

 rendered possible the detailed examination of forms 

 barely perceptible, or even invisible, to the naked 

 eye : witness the five huge volumes lately published 

 in the reports of the Challenger Expedition, 

 in which are recorded Professor Haeckel's re- 

 searches on the Radiolaria, and those of Professor 

 Brady on the Foraminifera. It has also revealed 

 to us numberless facts of the utmost importance 

 concerning the minute structure of animals whose 

 general anatomy was previously well known : facts 

 which in many cases have shown that our earlier 

 ideas as to the affinities of these forms were 



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