3G 
THE LIVING INFINITE. 
III. 
OUR STUDIES AT FONTAINEBLEAU. 
I feel no surprise that, our great initiator into the 
Insect World, Swammerdam, recoiled in affright when 
the microscope first afforded him a glimpse of it. 
For the name of its inhabitants is, the Living 
Infinite. 
Upwards of two hundred years men have laboured, 
simplifying in one direction, and complicating in 
another. The excellent treatises written upon this 
subject leave, among a multitude of partial illumina¬ 
tions, a certain feeling of being dazzled. Such is the 
impression which their study for some time produced 
upon us. 
Ought I to flatter myself that I can render it 
clearer than my masters have done ? By no means. 
But I discovered, through the incident which took 
place at Lucerne, and others of later date, that our 
enthusiastic and sympathetic ignorance could pene¬ 
trate further, perhaps, into the meaning of the insect 
life than has been the lot of many scientific classiflca- 
tors. 
The thought pursued me during the winter, but I 
could not verify any experiment at Paris; it was only 
at Fontainebleau that I worked out the truly simple 
formula about to be submitted to the -reader, and obtained some tran¬ 
quillity of mind, so far as this subject was concerned. 
