A PROPHET IN HIS OWN COUNTRY. 
135 
its great liairy feet, was identical with a winged and ethereal being, 
the butterfly ? 
He dared to say, and by the most delicate anatomy he demonstrated, 
that the larva, the pupa, and the butterfly represented three conditions 
of the same individual, three natural and legitimate evolutions of its life. 
How did learned Europe welcome this novel science of meta¬ 
morphoses ? That was the question. Swammerdam, young and with¬ 
out authority, without any position in the academy or university, 
lived in his cabinet. Scarcely anything of his works was published 
during his life, nor even fifty years afterwards, so that his discoveries 
might circulate and advantage all, rather than himself and his fame. 
Holland remained indifferent. Eminent professors in the Uni¬ 
versity of Leyden were opposed to him; and took umbrage at the fact 
that a simple student placed himself by his discoveries on a level 
with them, or even above them. 
I 
The miserable and necessitous condition in which his father left 
him was not calculated to recommend him greatly in a country like 
Holland. In his costly labours he was supported by the generosity of 
his friends. At Leyden it was Van Horn, his professor of anatomy, 
who defrayed all his expenses. 
At this epoch two illustrious academies were founded,—the Royal 
Society of London and the Academie des Sciences of Paris. But the 
former, specially inspired by the genius of Harvey, a pupil of Padua, 
turned its gaze towards Italy, and addressed its inquiries to the dis¬ 
tinguished and very accurate observer, Malpighi, who furnished at its 
request the anatomy of the silkworm. I know not why the English¬ 
men turned aside from Holland, and did not also interrogate the genius 
of Swammerdam. 
He was honoured only in France. It was here, in the neighbourhood 
of Paris, that he made the first public demonstration of his discovery. 
His friend Thevenot, the famous traveller and publisher of travels, 
collected around him at Issy different classes of savants , linguists, 
orientalists, and, before all, inquiring students of Nature. Such was 
the origin of the Academie des Sciences. One might justly say that 
the revelation of the illustrious Hollander inaugurated its cradle. 
