INTIIODUCTORY LETTER. 17 



mode is always the best that can be conceived for at- 

 taining the end in view. The instruments also with 

 which they are provided are no less wonderful and va- 

 rious than the operations themselves. They have their 

 saws, and files, and augers, and gimlets, and knives, 

 and lancets, and scissors, and forceps, with many other 

 similar implements ; several of which act in more than 

 one capacity, and with a complex and alternate mo- 

 tion to which we have not yet attained in the use of our 

 tools. Nor is the fact so extraordinary as it may seem 

 at first, since " He who is wise in heart and wonderful 

 in working" is the inventor and fabricator of the ap- 

 paratus of insects ; which may be considered as a set 

 of miniature patterns drawn for our use by a Divine 

 hand. I shall hereafter give you a more detailed ac- 

 count of some of the most striking of these instruments ; 

 and if you study insects in this view, you will be well 

 repaid for all the labour and attention you bestow upon 

 them. 



But a more important species of instruction than any 

 hitherto enumerated may be derived from entomologi- 

 cal pursuits. If we attend to the history and manners 

 of insects, they will furnish us with many useful les- 

 sons in Ethics, and from them we may learn to improve 

 ourselves in various virtues. We have indeed the in- 

 spired authority of the wisest of mankind for studying 

 them in this view, since he himself wrote a treatise upon 

 them, and sends his sluggard to one for a lesson of wis- 

 dom*. And if we value diligence and indefatigable in- 

 dustry ; judgement, prudence, and foresight ; economy 

 and frugality ; if we look upon modesty and diffidence 



"■ 1 Kiug5 iv, 33. Prov. vi. 6—8. 

 VOL. 1. C 



