64 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



deed exist. But the work itself is in the state of a 

 dictionary wanting a considerable proportion of the 

 words of the language it professes to explain ; and 

 placing those, which it does contain, in an order often 

 so arbitrary and defective, that it is difficult to discover 

 even the page containing the word you are in search 

 of Can it be denied, then, that they are most meri- 

 toriously employed who devote themselves to the re- 

 moval of these defects — to the perfecting of the system 

 — and to clearing the path of future economical or 

 physiological observers from the obstructions which 

 now beset it ? And who that knows the vast extent of 

 the science, and how impossible it is that a divided at- 

 tention can embrace the whole, will contend that it is 

 not desirable that some labourers in the field of lite- 

 rature should devote themselves entirely and exclu- 

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

 portance of the comprehensive views of a Fabricius, 

 an Illiger, 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 honourable 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 Avith you, and 

 which indeed is calculated to make the deepest impres- 

 sion upon the best minds — I mean the charge of inhu- 

 manity and cruelty. That the science of Entomology 

 cannot be properly cultivated without the death of its 

 objects, and that this is not to be effected without put- 

 ting them to some pain, must be allowed ; but that this 



