96 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



who created us ; and in it, provided our minds be rightly 

 disposed, we may read his eternal verities. And the 

 more accurate and enlarged our knowledge of his 

 works, the better shall we be able to understand his 

 word ; and the more practised we are in his w^ord, the 

 more readily shall we discern his truth in his works ; 

 for, proceeding from the same great Author, they must, 

 when rightly interpreted, mutually explain and illus- 

 trate each other. 



Who tlien shall dare maintain, unless he has the har- 

 dihood to deny that God created them, that the study of 

 insects and their ways is trilling or unprofitable ? Were 

 they not arrayed in all their beauty, and surrounded with 

 all their wonders, and made so instrumental (as I shall 

 hereafter prove them to be) to our welfare, that we might 

 glorify and praise him for them ? Why were insects made 

 attractive, if not, as Ray well expresses it, that they 

 might ornament the universe and be delightful objects 

 of contemplation to man'^ ? And is it not clear, as Dr. 

 Paley has observed, that the production of beauty was 

 as much in the Creator's mind in painting a butterfly 

 or in studding a beetle, as in giving symmetry to the 

 human frame, or graceful curves to its muscular cover- 

 ing *• ? And shall we think it beneath us to study what 

 he hath not thought it beneath him to adorn and place 



* " Qussri fortasse a nonniinis potest, Qiiis Papilionurn iisus sit ? Re- 

 spoiuleo, Ad ornatuni Univcrsi, ct iit liomiiiibus spectaculo sint: ad rnra 

 illuslranda velut tot bractCEe inservieutcs. Qiiis enim eximiam eanim pul- 

 chritiulinem ct -varietatem coiitcmplanB mira voluptate non afficiatur ? 

 Quis tot colorum ct schcmatum clcgantias naturoe ipsiiis ingenio excogi- 

 tatas et artifici penicillo dcpi<-tas curiosis oculis intiion?, divinajartis ves- 

 tigia eis itnpressa non agnoscat ct iniretur ? " Rai. Hist. Itis. 109. 



'• Xat. Tfieol. 2\3. 



