It has been remarked by an eminent entomologist, that natural history, which, during the long series of ages in which barbarism reigned, shared the fate of the other sciences, underwent the same treatment when a taste for knowledge began to revive. For example, it was chiefly in Aristotle that the history of animals was sought; whereas, if Aldrovandi, Gesner, Moufet, and other physiologists, had studied nature as much as they studied the ancient writers, the assiduous labour of so many active minds would have secured for that science a more sure and rapid progress. The material world was then observed only for the purpose of confirming the reports made by the authors of antiquity. At length Nature opened the eyes of those who were trying to see in her only what they had seen in Aristotle and Pliny. She disclosed to them facts worthy of being noticed, which they vainly sought in the books which they imagined to contain every thing; and unfolded others, which gave them reason to doubt the truth of those that had been transmitted from former ages. After having thrown off the fetters of authority, farther, perhaps, than was quite consistent with the respect that was really due to the ancients, men perceived that they ought to study facts, verify whatever had been related, and try to discover more. It was thus that Malpighi, Swammerdam, Redi, and other illustrious authors proceeded. Even those, such as Goedart and Madame Merian, who, from an ignorance in some degree fortunate, were unable to read the ancients, laboured with advantage as observers.[H] The subject of this memoir was born at Amsterdam on the 12th February 1637. His father, an apothecary, was fond of natural history, and, being in prosperous circumstances, embellished his house with preserved animals, shells, and minerals, insomuch that it became an object of attraction to the curious. Young Swammerdam was intended for the church, and received instructions in the Greek and Latin languages, to qualify him for the study of divinity; but, on seriously considering the importance of the task designed for him, he judged himself incapable of discharging the duties of a religious instructor. On representing the matter to his parents, he received their permission to commence the study of medicine. Being frequently employed in cleaning and arranging his father's cabinet, he gradually acquired a liking to natural history, and even at an early age began to form a collection of insects, which he disposed into classes, agreeably to ideas derived from observation and the descriptions of authors. Day and night he pursued his favourite employment, searching the woods and fields, the sandhills and muddy shores, the lakes, rivers, and canals, for insects, worms, and mollusca, until he acquired, even while a youth, a more extensive and more accurate knowledge of the lower animals than all the naturalists who had preceded him.