24? OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



more honour to their country and to human nature than 

 Ray, Willughby, Lister, and Derham ? Yet all these 

 made the study of insects one of their most favourite 

 pursuits ; and, as if to prove that this study is not in- 

 compatible with the highest flights of genius, we can 

 add to the list the name of one of the most sublime of 

 our poets, Gray, who was very zealously devoted to En- 

 tomology. As far therefore as names have weight, the 

 above enumeration seems sufficient to shelter the votaries 

 of this pleasing science from the charge of folly.' 



But we do not wish to rest our defence upon autho- 

 rities alone ; let the voice of reason be heard, and our 

 justification will be complete. The entomologist, or, to 

 speak more generally, the naturalist (for on this question 

 of Cut bono ? every student in all departments of Na- 

 tural History is concerned), if the following considera- 

 tions be allowed their due weight, may claim a much 

 higher station amongst the learned than has hitherto 

 been conceded to him. 



There are two principal avenues to knowledge the 

 study of words and the study of things. Skill in the 

 learned languages being often necessary to enable us to 

 acquire knowledge in the former way, is usually consi- 

 dered as knowledge itself; so that no one asks Cui bono? 

 when a person devotes himself to the study of verbal 

 criticism, and employs his time in correcting the errors 

 that have crept into the text of an ancient writer. In- 

 deed it must be owned, though perhaps too much stress 

 is sometimes laid upon it, that this is very useful to en- 

 able us to ascertain his true meaning. But after all, 

 words are but the arbitrary signs of ideas, and have no 

 value independent of those ideas, further than what arises 



