■"276 PLEASURES AND ADVANTAGES OP 



ordinary sensations, and alive only to a worthless 

 and useless occupation. In considering the many 

 advantages of Natural History, we shall furnisn 

 abundant means of replying to such as entertain 

 these ideas. Some persons will concede that it is 

 an innocent amusement, but they cannot conceive 

 that it is at all useful — the fallacy of this argument 

 will be likewise presently exposed. Ladies gener- 

 ally refuse to become naturalists from the fear that 

 their delicacy would receive too severe a shock, and 

 that they will be accounted " blue stockings.'' The 

 first excuse is founded on false delicacy, and is more- 

 over a subterfuge, which the remainder of their con- 

 duct sometimes but ill accords with. The second 

 reason is one which their good understandings forbid 

 them to avow, but which acts most powerfully in 

 deterring them. It is indeed lamentable to reflect 

 on the consequences of a defective, or rather an im- 

 proper education, especially that monstrously absurd 

 education bestowed on young females at the present 

 time; without which they are considered as unfit to 

 enter society, and with which they are debarred 

 from those pursuits which would constitute the great- 

 est pleasures of their existence. That refinement of 

 their education as it is termed, is in fact a system of 

 exclusion, whereby their actions, and their very 

 thoughts are restricted to the most narrow bounds. 

 Without objecting to the science itself, some persons 

 have stated that it is so encumbered by a jargon of 

 Latin names, that they despair of surmounting such 

 an obstacle, and so are deterred from becoming 

 naturalists. This subject of nomenclature we shall 

 on some future occasion discuss at length, and we 

 have only here to inform such persons, that Natural 

 History consists in the knowledge of things, and 

 that the knowledge of names, although useful and 

 even necessary among naturalists, is nevertheless 

 unessential in itself. With regard to the accusa- 

 tions brought against Natural-historians ; these are 

 of a serious nature ; but are sometimes ill-founded. 



