Father, was born corporeally, and concealed his most noble footprints, i.e., his divinity, by the sacrosanct body of human origin existing for human salvation.

The second quality of the same lion, king of beasts. His second quality, or custom, is of this nature. The lion, when he sleeps, has open and watchful eyes. Of the same mystery the holy Church in the Song of Songs spoke to her spouse, when rejoicing she exclaimed: I sleep and my heart watches; i.e., the body of Christ slept, who is the head of the Church, and who by his divine will slept the quiet sleep of bodily death; the deity of the same Word, which is the mind and heart of the holy Church, watched and did not sleep in death, being God and immortal. For the Church is the body of Christ, as the apostolic writings teach, and God the Word with the Father and the Holy Spirit is her mind and understanding and faith.

The third quality of the same lion, or his power of generation. The third quality of the lion is of this kind. When the lioness bears her cubs, they are born dead; but she watches over them until the third day, when the father is accustomed to come to them. When he comes and finds them dead, he breathes between their eyes and makes them arise. Theory. In the same way God the Omnipotent Father made arise on the third day the firstborn of all creatures, namely our Lord Jesus, his beloved son and the true God. And also our Lord after he had risen from death, breathed into his holy disciples; and raised up Adam again into the communion of the Holy Spirit, which he had lost when he transgressed the command. Very clearly spoke Jacob: He couched as a lion's cub and who shall rouse him up. Theory of another kind. This is otherwise expounded by some, who say of the lion and the lion's cub that they are like those who overcome themselves, yet do not endure to the end of their labours, those who of their own wish cloister themselves and are dead to the world and its ugly sins. Then there comes to them the father of sins and inventor of perdition and defection from God, who is like a lion, gigantic in evil; he finds them dead to the world and remote from his communion of sinfulness, and he is concerned for them, and comes to the place, and breathes his bitterness into them, and makes them live to sin and the world, to which they were dead and from which they had escaped by good works and the propinquity of God.

HOOKE: AN EARLY MICROSCOPIST

181

LIKE all other sciences, biology awoke at the time of the Renaissance, re-read Aristotle, and settled to a new era of patient observation. Striking advances were few; we find in the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci the foreshadowing of later discoveries in anatomy, physiology, and optics; Andreas Vesalius published a book on human anatomy, based on actual dissection, not, as were previous works, on what Galen taught; William Harvey made clear the mechanism of the circulation of the blood. In the seventeenth century the improvement of the microscope gave an impetus to biological observation like that imparted to astronomy by Galileo's telescope. No one man was responsible for this improvement, but perhaps the two to whom it was chiefly due were Anthony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), a glass-grinder of Delft, who was elected a member of the Royal Society of London as a result of his work on microscopes, and Robert Hooke, who lived from 1635 to 1703. The latter was brought up in Sir Peter Lely's workshop, and was employed, after graduating at Oxford, by Robert Boyle, the chemist. He was curator of experiments to the Royal Society for 41 years, and secretary for five years. Both he and Leeuwenhoek published collections of observations; we quote from Hooke's Micrographia a typical account of the Gnat, with speculations on spontaneous generation. Besides his microscopic work, Hooke devised methods of flying, improved the construction of watches, made plans and acted as surveyor for the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire, suggested weather forecasts, and approached the theory of gravitation. His very varied knowledge thus led him to originate much, but perfect little. Owing to his solitary and irritable nature, he had a lonely life and few friends.

MICROGRAPHIA

Or some PHYSIOLOGICAL DESCRIPTIONS of MINUTE BODIES made by MAGNIFYING GLASSES. With Observations and enquiries thereupon. By R. HOOKE, Fellow of the Royal Society.

London, 1665.

Observ. XLIII. Of the WATER-INSECT or GNAT. THIS little creature, described in the first Figure of the 27. Scheme, was a small scaled or crusted Animal which I have often observ'd to be generated in Rain-water; I have also observ'd it both in Pond and River-water. It is suppos'd by some, to deduce

its first original from the putrifaction of Rain-water, in which, if it have stood any time open to the air, you shall seldom miss, all the Summer long, of store of them striking too and fro.

'Tis a creature, wholly differing in shape from any I ever observ'd; nor is its motion less strange: It has a very large head, in proportion to its body, all covered with a shell, like other testaceous Animals, but it differs in this, that it has, up and down several parts of it, several tufts of hairs, or bristles, plac'd in the order express'd in the Figure; It has two horns, which seem'd almost like the horns of an Oxe, inverted, and, as neer as I could guess, were hollow, with tufts of brisles, likewise at the top: these horns they could move easily this or that way, and might perchance, be their nostrils. It has a pretty large mouth, which seem'd contriv'd much like those of Crabs and Lobsters, by which, I have often observ'd them to feed on water, or some imperceptible nutritive substance in it.

I could perceive, through the transparent shell, while the Animal surviv'd, several motions in the head, thorax, and belly, very distinctly, of differing kinds which I may, perhaps, elsewhere endeavour more accurately to examine, and to shew of how great benefit the use of a Microscope may be for the discovery of Nature's course in the operations perform'd in Animal bodies, by which we have the opportunity of observing her through these delicate and pellucid teguments of the bodies of Insects acting according to her usual course and way, undisturbed, whereas, when we endeavour to pry into her secrets by breaking open the doors upon her, and dissecting and mangling creatures while there is life yet within them, we find her indeed at work, but put into such disorder by the violence offer'd, as it may easily be imagin'd, how differing a thing we should find, if we could, as we can with a Microscope, in these smaller creatures, quietly peep in at the windows, without frighting her out of her usual byas.

The form of the whole creature, as it appear'd in the Microscope, may, without troubling you with more descriptions, be plainly enough perceiv'd by the scheme, the hinder part or belly consisting of eight several jointed parts, namely, ABCDEFGH, of the first Figure, from the midst of each of which, on either side, issued out three or four small bristles or hairs, I, I, I, I, I,

Head

the tail was divided into two parts of very differing make; one of them, namely, K, having many tufts of hair or bristles, which seem'd to serve both for the finns and tail, for the Oars and Ruder of this little creature, wherewith it was able, by striking

and bending its body nimbly to and fro, to move himself any whither, and to skull and steer himself as he pleas'd; the other part, L, seem'd to be, as 'twere, the ninth division of his belly, and had many single bristles on either side. From the end V, of which, through the whole belly, there was a kind of Gut

of a darker colour, MMM, wherein, by certain Peristaltick motions there was a kind of black substance mov'd upwards and downwards through it from the orbicular part of it, N, (which seem'd the Ventricle, or stomach) to the tail V, and so back again, which peristaltick motion I have observ'd also in a Louse, a Gnat, and several other kinds of transparent body'd Flies. The Thorax or chest of this creature 0000, was thick and short, and pretty transparent, for through it I could see the white heart (which is the colour also of the blood in these, and most other Insects) to beat, and several other kind of motions. It was bestuck and adorn'd up and down with several tufts of bristles, such as are pointed out by P, P, P, P, the head Q was likewise bestuck with several of those tufts, SSS; it was broad and short, had two black eyes, TT, which I could not perceive at all pearl'd, as they afterwards appear'd, and two small horns, RR, such as I formerly describ'd.

Both its motion and rest is very strange, and pleasant, and differing from those of most other creatures I have observ'd; for, where it ceases from moving its body, the tail of it seeming much lighter than the rest of its body, and a little lighter than the water it swims in, presently boys it up to the top of the water, where it hangs suspended with the head always downward; and like our Antipodes, if they do by a frisk get below that superficies, they presently ascend again into it, if they cease moving, until they tread, as it were, under that superficies with their tails; the hanging of these in this posture, put me in mind of a certain creature I have seen in London, that was brought out of America, which would very firmly suspend it self by the tail, with the head downwards, and was said to sleep in that posture, with her young ones in her false belly, which is a Purse, provided by Nature for the production, nutrition, and preservation of the young ones, which is describ'd by Piso in the 24. Chapter of the Fifth Book of his Natural History of Brazil.

The motion of it was with the tail forwards, drawing its self backwards, by the striking to and fro of that tuft which grew out of one of the stumps of its tail. It had another motion, which was more sutable to that of other creatures, and that is, with the head forward; for by the moving of his chaps (if I may so call the parts of his mouth) it was able to move it self