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Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch weaver, whose microscopical studies developed naturally from his trade (Leeuwenhoek spent many years examining and inspecting linens). This interrelationship between textiles and scientific inquiry, due partly to a shared interest in pattern formation (both natural and artificial), helped to promote the new science, and is discussed elsewhere on she-philosopher.com vis à vis the microscopy and inventions of Robert Hooke.

Like Hooke, Leeuwenhoek was also a passionate observer, able to see things with his finely-crafted instruments — and experienced eye — that no one else could. He engaged in a lengthy correspondence with the Royal Society, and this important letter (with drawings) from 1681 is a good example of the sort of mutual influence undergirding many advances in 17th-century science.

Even though the “animalcules” Leeuwenhoeck had observed in his microscope were “some of them ... one hundred millions of times less than” a grain of “a great sand” in size, Leeuwenhoeck delighted in their human-like play and other sensate pleasures:

I not only distinguish the velocities of their motions faster and slower, and their various turnings and windings, and playing up and down the Liquor, and one with another; but I can also see them dying and dead, and moveless. The bigger sorts I can see like Mice, running to and fro before my eyes: Nay in some I have seen the inward parts of the mouth thrust in and out, as if they played with it, and in divers the very hairs about their mouths....

It was such enthusiastic description of the invisible world revealed by Leeuwenhoeck’s extraordinary microscopes that brought Hooke back to microscopical study in 1677. Sometime after his Micrographia was published in 1665, Hooke ceased microscopical studies because of serious eyestrain. (Hooke would go fully blind eventually, but he began suffering from temporary bouts of blindness in 1689, due in great part to having spent so many years working with optical instruments in a concentrated blaze of sunshine.)

When Leeuwenhoeck’s first letter (5 Oct. 1677) reached Hooke, with its testimonials concerning the incredible numbers and activities of “little Animalcules” discovered in various waters — admittedly, wrote Leeuwenhoeck, “This exceeds belief.” — Hooke was so “extremely desirous to examine this matter farther, and to be ascertained by ocular inspection as well as from testimonials” that he returned to microscopical study:

I put in order such remainders as I had of my former Microscopes (having by reason of a weakness in my sight omitted the use of them for many years).

At first, Hooke couldn’t see the “animalcules,” but when he finally did, and was able to confirm Leeuwenhoeck’s discovery, the excitement was palpable.

Their epistolary exchange on the subject of “animalcules” complicates, and even undermines, some of our received theories about 17th-century ways of seeing, and deserves new consideration.

RELATES TO: the GALLERY exhibit on Portraits of Melancholy — I, with its lengthy discussion of the microscopists’ new aesthetic; ISSUES webessays on 17th-century optics and vision, and a companion GALLERY exhibit on “the cosmographical glass”; the series of IN BRIEF topics on optical instruments; multiple digital editions of Hooke’s lectures/writings relating to optics and microscopy in the LIBRARY; the PLAYERS pages on Robert Hooke, Athanasius Kircher, and Margaret Cavendish


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	Anton van Leeuwenhoek’s letter to the Royal Society on “the Animals in Semine Masculino Insectorum” (1681) Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch weaver, whose microscopical studies developed naturally from his trade (Leeuwenhoek spent many years examining and inspecting linens). This interrelationship between textiles and scientific inquiry, due partly to a shared interest in pattern formation (both natural and artificial), helped to promote the new science, and is discussed elsewhere on she-philosopher.com vis à vis the microscopy and inventions of Robert Hooke. Like Hooke, Leeuwenhoek was also a passionate observer, able to see things with his finely-crafted instruments — and experienced eye — that no one else could. He engaged in a lengthy correspondence with the Royal Society, and this important letter (with drawings) from 1681 is a good example of the sort of mutual influence undergirding many advances in 17th-century science. Even though the “animalcules” Leeuwenhoeck had observed in his microscope were “some of them ... one hundred millions of times less than” a grain of “a great sand” in size, Leeuwenhoeck delighted in their human-like play and other sensate pleasures: I not only distinguish the velocities of their motions faster and slower, and their various turnings and windings, and playing up and down the Liquor, and one with another; but I can also see them dying and dead, and moveless. The bigger sorts I can see like Mice, running to and fro before my eyes: Nay in some I have seen the inward parts of the mouth thrust in and out, as if they played with it, and in divers the very hairs about their mouths.... It was such enthusiastic description of the invisible world revealed by Leeuwenhoeck’s extraordinary microscopes that brought Hooke back to microscopical study in 1677. Sometime after his Micrographia was published in 1665, Hooke ceased microscopical studies because of serious eyestrain. (Hooke would go fully blind eventually, but he began suffering from temporary bouts of blindness in 1689, due in great part to having spent so many years working with optical instruments in a concentrated blaze of sunshine.) When Leeuwenhoeck’s first letter (5 Oct. 1677) reached Hooke, with its testimonials concerning the incredible numbers and activities of “little Animalcules” discovered in various waters — admittedly, wrote Leeuwenhoeck, “This exceeds belief.” — Hooke was so “extremely desirous to examine this matter farther, and to be ascertained by ocular inspection as well as from testimonials” that he returned to microscopical study: I put in order such remainders as I had of my former Microscopes (having by reason of a weakness in my sight omitted the use of them for many years). At first, Hooke couldn’t see the “animalcules,” but when he finally did, and was able to confirm Leeuwenhoeck’s discovery, the excitement was palpable. Their epistolary exchange on the subject of “animalcules” complicates, and even undermines, some of our received theories about 17th-century ways of seeing, and deserves new consideration. RELATES TO: the GALLERY exhibit on Portraits of Melancholy — I, with its lengthy discussion of the microscopists’ new aesthetic; ISSUES webessays on 17th-century optics and vision, and a companion GALLERY exhibit on “the cosmographical glass”; the series of IN BRIEF topics on optical instruments; multiple digital editions of Hooke’s lectures/writings relating to optics and microscopy in the LIBRARY; the PLAYERS pages on Robert Hooke, Athanasius Kircher, and Margaret Cavendish
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