56 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



directing the instincts of all, that they may operate most where they are 

 most wanted ! We cannot better exercise the reasoning powers and 

 faculties with which he has endowed us, than by copying his example. 

 We often employ the larger animals to destroy each other, but the smallefj 

 especially insects, we have totally neglected. Some may think, perhaps, 

 that in aiming to do this we should be guilty of presumption, and of at- 

 tempting to take the government and direction of things out of the hands 

 of Providence ; but this is a very weak argument, which might with equal 

 reason be adduced to prove that when rats and mice become troublesome 

 to us, we ought not to have recourse to dogs, ferrets, and cats to extermi- 

 nate them. When any species multiplies upon us, so as to become noxious, 

 w^e certainly have a just right to destroy it, and what means can be more 

 proper than those which Providence itself has furnished? We can none 

 of us go further or do more than the Divine Will permits ; and he will 

 take care that our efforts shall not be injurious to the general welfare, or 

 effect the annihilation of any individual species. 



Again, with regard to insects that are employed in medicine or the arts, 

 if the apothecary cannot distinguish a Cantharis or blister-beetle from a 

 Carabus or Cetonia, both of which beetles I have found mixed with the 

 former, how can he know whether his druggist furnishes him with a good 

 or bad article ? And the same observation may with still greater force 

 apply to the dyer in his purchase of cochineal, since it is still more difficult 

 to distinguish the wild sort from the cultivated. There are, it is probable, 

 many insects that might be employed with advantage in both these depart- 

 ments ; but unless Entomology be more generally studied by scientific 

 men, who are the only persons likely to make discoveries of this kind, 

 than it has hitherto been, we must not hope to derive further profit from 

 them. It seems more particularly incumbent upon the professors of the 

 divine art of healing to become conversant with this as well as the other 

 branches of Natural History ; for not only do they derive some of their 

 most useful drugs from insects, but many also of the diseases upon which 

 they are consulted, as we shall see hereafter, are occasioned by them. 

 For want of this kind of information medical men run the risk of confound- 

 ing diseases perfectly distinct, at least as to the animal that causes them. 

 It would be a most desirable thing to have professors in each branch of 

 Natural History in our universities, and to make it indispensable, in order 

 to the obtaining of any degree in physic, that the candidate should have 

 attended these lectures. We may judge from the good effects that the 

 arts have derived from the present very general attention to Chemistry 

 how beneficial would be the consequence if Entomology were equally 

 cultivated ; and I shall conclude this paragraph with what I think may be 

 laid down as an incontrovertible axiom : — That the profit we derive from 

 the works of creation will be in proportion to the accuracy of our know- 

 ledge of them and their properties. 



I trust I have now said enough to convince you and every thinking man 

 that the study of insects, so far from being vain, idle, trifling, or unprofita- 

 ble, may be attended with very important advantages to mankind, and 

 ought at least to be placed upon a level with many other branches of 

 science, against which such accusations are never alledged. 



