HISTORY OF THE ROTIFERA, OR WHEEL ANIMALCULES. 477 
Surely there must be a consciousness of pleasure derived from 
the recognized proximity of others of the same kind, quite 
independent of the mere material welfare of the individual ; and 
if this inference be unavoidable, then we must admit, even in 
creatures so far removed from man as these tiny invertebrata, 
the implantation of sentiments and feelings of like nature to 
those which in him we distinguish as moral, — differing not in 
kind, but only in degree. 
There is a not unnatural reluctance in our minds to admit the 
existence of such feelings in the more minute creatures, even 
when we have no hesitation in attributing them to the dog, 
the horse, or the elephant. It does certainly strike one as 
more wonderful to find mental and moral emotions associated 
with a tiny insect-body and a homogangliate system of nerves ; 
but we may discover even in such a combination new proofs of 
the infinite resources of the unbounded God, to whom nothing 
is great, nothing small. “ If,” says Basil of Caesarea, “ we 
speak of a fly, or a gnat, or a bee, our discourse must demon- 
strate the power of His hand who created it. The skill of the 
artificer is most manifest in His most minute works ; and He 
who stretched out the heavens and excavated the seas, is the 
same Being who has perforated the sting of the bee as a passage 
for its venom.” 
The class of animals of which I am treating in this series of 
papers is composed of individuals which are far more minute than 
even the smallest of those which we have just been noticing. Hot 
one of them is large enough to be detected by the unassisted 
human sight ; or, if there is an exception, in strict literal truth, to 
such a statement, it only amounts to this, that when held up in the 
most favourable position to the light, the skilled and disciplined 
eye might just discern a speck of matter which microscopic 
examination would prove to be a Steplianoceros. Can it be 
within the range of possibility that instincts and faculties kin- 
dred in character to those above described exist in an atom 
of life, several hundreds of which, if ranked side by side, would 
comfortably pack within the inch-measure of an ivory scale ? 
Can mental or moral perceptions and sentiments find their seat 
in such a being as this ? Yes, there is good reason to conclude 
that they may. Absurd, and even ludicrous as the assumption 
may appear to some minds, I shall presently adduce some 
curious facts, which as conclusively testify to thought and feel- 
ing in the soul ccnima ) of a Rotifer unappreciable to the 
human sense, as do the social and constructive instincts in that 
of a grosbeak or a beaver. 
Let us now consider another family of this class Rotifeba. 
We may distinguish them as Builder Animalcules, and, select- 
ing a scientific family title from that genus in which the pro- 
