Nobody ever reads a science textbook for fun. But scientists, as distinct from textbook writers, have sometimes been highly readable writers. Proof of it is available this week in a new collection of the history-making but seldom-read writings of 100 of the world's greatest scientists. It is The Autobiography of Science (Doubleday, Doran; $4), edited by Forest Ray Moulton, secretary of the American Association for the Advance ment of Science, and Justus J. Schifferes. By & large, this anthology bears out its editors' assertion that "good science makes good reading." Three cases in point:
Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), Dutch shopkeeper, amateur...