38 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



culties with which he has endowed us, than by copying 

 his example. We often employ the larger animals to 

 destroy each other, but the smaller, especially insects, 

 we have totally neglected. Some may think, perhaps, 

 that in aiming to do this we should be guilty of presump- 

 tion, and of attempting to take the government and di- 

 rection of things out of the hands of Providence : but 

 this is a very weak argument, which might with equal 

 reason be adduced to prove that when rats and mice be- 

 come troublesome to us, we ought not to have recourse to 

 dogs, ferrets, and cats to exterminate them. When any 

 species multiplies upon us, so as to become noxious, we 

 certainly have a just right to destroy it, and what means 

 can be more proper than those which Providence itself 

 has furnished? We can none of us go further or do more 

 than the Divine Will permits ; and he will take care that 

 our efforts shall not be injurious to the general welfare, 

 or effect the annihilation of any individual species. 



Again, with regard to insects that are employed in 

 medicine or the arts, if the apothecary cannot distinguish 

 a Cantharis or blister-beetle from a Carabus or Cetonia, 

 both of which beetles I have found mixed with the 

 former, how can he know whether his druggist furnishes 

 him with a good or bad article ? And the same obser- 

 vation may with still greater force apply to the dyer in 

 his purchase of cochineal, since it is still more difficult 

 to distinguish the wild sort from the cultivated. There 

 are, it is probable, many insects that might be employed 

 with advantage in both these departments : but unless 

 Entomology be more generally studied by scientific men, 

 who are the only persons likely to make discoveries of 

 this kind, than it has hitherto been, we must not hope 



