VERMES. 51 
CHAPTER IL 
VERMES. 
NorninG promotes the advance of learning equally as approbation 
and encouragement. Nor can the ardent student of Nature receive a 
more chilling reproof, than by finding the subjects of his predilection 
treated with contempt. 
If the Author of the Universe deemed the whole animal portion of 
it worthy of creation, how can that production exist which may be ra- 
tionally despised of man ? 
But ignorance, prejudice, or presumption, are too ready to attach 
qualities to mere external aspect, to deny properties unseen, or to deride 
as worthless what they do not comprehend. 
Yet true it is, that the rarest virtues often lurk unseen, whence 
the earliest duty of the wise, the liberal, and the just, is to probe diligently 
and deeply those marvellous works of Nature continually exhibited to 
our half-frozen senses. 
It was peculiarly unfortunate that so distinguished an author as 
Linnzus, a naturalist of the highest order, and the first who founded an 
improveable system, should have comprehended an immense class of ani- 
mated productions under the general denomination of Worms. Not only 
does it include a vast variety of living beings void of any common fea- 
tures appreciable by ordinary observation, whether in relation to form 
or habits, but because the appellation Worms, however justly applicable 
