OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 55 



defective, that it is difficult to discover even the page con- 

 taining the word you are in search of. Can it be denied, 

 then, that they are most meritoriously employed who de- 

 vote themselves to the removal of these defects — to the 

 perfecting of the system — and to clearing the path of fu- 

 ture economical or physiological observers from the ob- 

 structions which now beset it ? And who that knows the 

 vast extent of the science, and how impossible it is that 

 a divided attention can embrace the whole, will contend 

 that it is not desirable that some labourers in the field 

 of literature should devote themselves entirely and exclu- 

 sively to this object? Who that is aware of the import- 

 ance of the comprehensive views of a Fabricius, an llli- 

 ger, or a Latreille, and the infinite saving of time of 

 which their inquiries will be productive to their followers, 

 will dispute their claim to rank amongst the most honour- 

 able in science ? 



II. No objection, I think, now remains against ad- 

 dicting ourselves to entomological pursuits, but that which 

 seems to have the most weight with you, and which in- 

 deed is calculated to make the deepest impression upon 

 the best minds — I mean the charge of inhumanity and 

 cruelty. That the science of Entomology cannot be pro- 

 perly cultivated without the death of its objects, and that 

 this is not to be effected without putting them to some 

 pain, must be allowed; but that this substantiates the 

 charge of cruelty against us I altogether deny. Cruelty 

 is an unnecessary infliction of suifering, when a person is 

 fond of torturing or destroying God's creatures from 

 mere wantonness, with no useful end in view; or when, 

 if their death be useful and lawful, he has recourse to 



