20 



looked upon as a matter of course, and as therefore 

 beneath the notice of an intelligent mind : yet the man 

 who regards truth as valuable, for its own sake, under 

 whatever aspect it may come, and who can rise to the 

 appreciation of results, whether they be of rare or con- 

 stant occurrence, will have learnt to pronounce nothing 

 as unimportant which may supply a single link in that 

 chain of knowledge which would be broken and im- 

 perfect without it. A spirit of inquiry, however, is 

 becoming, year by year, more evident ; and we may con- 

 fidently anticipate the period when such reproaches will 

 have for ever died away. Natural history, in all its 

 branches, will then advance more rapidly than hereto- 

 fore, and each separate labourer, in his own peculiar 

 province, will breathe a more genial atmosphere ; whilst 

 observation and reason, mutually dependent on each 

 other, will work in concert more effectually. " Reason 

 without observation" writes the author above quoted, 

 " wants matter to act upon : and observations are neither 

 to be justly made by ourselves, nor to be rightly chosen 

 out of those collected by others, without the assistance 

 of reason. Both together may support opinion and 

 practice, in the absence of knowledge and certainty." 



In the last chapter we offered a few passing remarks 

 on insect- aberration generally, whether regarded as a 

 universal fact (which, however, even supposing such to 

 be true, it is not the object of the present treatise to 

 substantiate), or as an occasional one, that is to say, 

 as existing at all times to that extent (as an hereditary 



