Was this all? No. To observe dead bodies, time is required; but then time robs us of them. Death, which seemingly conduces to study by its immobility, is deceitful; it fixes the mask for a moment, and the object beneath melts away. Now came a new creation of Swammerdam's. He not only taught us to see and investigate, but he devised means for our permanent investigation. By preservative injections he fixed these ephemeral objects; he compelled time to halt, and forced death to endure. The Czar Peter, who, a long time afterwards, saw in the dissecting-room of one of Swammerdam's disciples the beautiful body, supple and fresh, of a little child, with its exquisite carnation tint, thought that the rose was living, and could not be prevented from embracing it. All this is soon said; but it was long to do. How many attempts! What miracles of patience, of delicacy, of skilful management! In exact proportion as one descends the scale of littleness, the insufficiency of our means proves more and more embarrassing. We can touch nothing without breaking it. Our large fingers will hold no more: they cast a shadow, they throw obstacles in our way. Our instruments are too coarse to seize upon such atoms; therefore we refine them. But then how can we put the invisible point in an invisible object? The two terms in sight avoid us. Only one single passion--the unconquerable love of life and Nature, the undefinable, indescribable tenderness, a feminine sensibility directed by a masculine, scientific genius--could succeed in so great an aim. Our Hollander loved the tiny creatures. He dreaded wounding them so much that he spared the scalpel. He avoided as far as he could the steel, and preferred the firm but nevertheless the delicate ivory. He fashioned in it infinitely small instruments, sharpened by aid of the microscope, which would not work rapidly, and compelled the student to make his observations with due patience. His tender respect for Nature found its reward. While still a youth, and a simple student at Leyden University, he had two strong holds upon her in her highest and lowest manifestations. He was the first to see and understand the maternity of the insect and the human maternity. The latter subject, so delicate and yet so grand--in which he laboured conjointly with his master at Leyden--I put aside: let us dwell upon the former. He dissected and described the ovaries of the bee: found them in the pretended "king;" and proved that she was a queen, or rather a mother. In like manner he explained the maternity of the ant; an all-important discovery, which revealed the true mystery of the superior insect, and initiated us into the real character of these societies, which are not monarchies, but maternal republics and vast public nurseries, each of which raises up a people.