18 
MEMOIR OF SWAMMERDAM. 
knowledge on these subjects ; and, in particular, he 
is entitled to be regarded as the founder of the science 
of entomological anatomy. With a few bright ex- 
ceptions — such as Goedart, Malpighi, and Redi — the 
cultivators of this department of natural history, be- 
fore his time, contented themselves with repeating 
what had been said by the ancients, without being 
at all solicitous either to prove its accuracy, or extend 
it by the addition of new facts. With him observa- 
tion began to supersede erudition; and the truth, 
which appears to have been so long almost unsus- 
pected, that there w’ere other and better sources of 
information, on natural objects, than the pages of 
Aristotle, or the ponderous compilations of the six- 
teenth century, was at length fully recognised and 
acted upon. The desire of prosecuting researches 
into insect organisation, became, with Swammerdam, 
an almost incontrollable passion. Professional views 
were sacrificed to it ; his father's displeasure, ex- 
pressed in no gentle terms, was incurred on account 
of it ; and even when his health had completely given 
way, in consequence of incessant study and unremit- 
ting anxiety, we find him expressing his desire that he 
had but a year of uninterrupted fight, that he might be 
enabled to complete his inquiries ! Such assiduity, 
skilfully directed, could not fail to insure important 
results ; and that such was their character, will ap- 
pear when they come to be specially indicated. 
His grandfather, James Theodore, w f ns born at 
Swammerdam, a village on the Rhine, between Ley 
den and Woerden. Removing thence to Amster 
