ENTOMOLOGY. 



433 



ation being bestowed upon an animal, certain pecu- 

 liarities of habit dependent thereupon are acquired. 

 Observe the result : if we adopt this mode of looking 

 at the operations of nature, do we not immediately 

 fall into one of the worst errors of some of the worst 

 of the French philosophers ? Do we not at once 

 virtually deny the existence of design in the creation ? 

 It was upon this very point that our great philosopher 

 John Ray contended with such eloquence in his 

 " Wisdom of God in the Works of the Creation." 

 Asrainst the doctrine that the bodies of men and all 

 other animals were the effects of the wisdom and 

 power of an intelligent and almighty Agent, and the 

 several parts and members of them designed to the 

 uses to which now they serve, the atheist, he observes, 

 has one subterfuge, in which he most confides, viz. 

 that all these uses of parts are no more than what is 

 necessary to t'ue very existence of the things to whom 

 they belong, and that things made uses, and not uses 

 things, and in this spirit Lucretius says, 



Nil ideo natum est in corpore ut uti 



Possumus, scd quod natum est, id procreat usum : 



And again 



Omnia deniquc membra 



Ante fuere, utopinor, eorum quam fuit usus. 



So that, in the opinion of the atheist, all this admired 

 and applauded usefulness of their several fabrics is 

 but a necessary condition and consequence of their 

 existence and propagation. 



If it could be proved that the doctrine con- 

 tained in such passages as those we have quoted, 

 ought not to be identified with the atheistical doc- 

 trines above alluded to, and refuted so ably by Ray, 

 we would not have noticed the subject in this manner ; 

 but when it cannot be denied that the only inter- 

 pretation to be put upon the former coincides so 

 exactly with the latter, we think it our duty to guard 

 our readers, and especially our younger readers, from 

 uuheedingly falling into a train of thought in which 

 the fore-knowledge and honnonious contrivances of an 

 all wise Creator, with reference to preconceived and 

 intended uses, are virtually denied ; attributes which 

 it is expressly within the duty of the zoologist to hold 

 up to contemplation and admiration, and which the 

 objects of his study so continually present to his view. 



Instances of structure dependent upon economy. A, fore leg 

 of the mole cricket, formed .for digging under ground, the arti- 

 culated taifcus, </, being lodged in the groove, l>, when inaction. 

 B, fore leg of a sand wasp, formed for burrowing in loose sand ; 

 the alas, a a, being employed in brushing: away the loose par- 

 ticles. 



We have purposely abstained from entering into the 

 arguments adduced by Kay in refutation of these 

 atheistical opinions, the opposite view being fortunately 

 too clear to need much argument in its support. He 

 would be but a sorry architect who, having completed 

 the building of a splendid palace, had not, previously 

 to its erection, planned the uses of its various apart- 

 ments, and adapted the size and situation of each to 

 its intended uses. 



NAT. HIST. VOL. II. 



We have thus seen that it is by the continued 

 accumulation of facts, and by noticing the adaptation 

 of structure to habits, or, as Ray more quaintly styled 

 it, the making of things to uses, that we obtain more 

 decided chances of attaining to perfection in our 

 systematic classifications. But we are enabled to do 

 more than this. Natural history is not a mere science 

 of system and names ; we have living objects for our 

 study. The student must, however, guard against 

 both extremes. It is as erroneous to consider that 

 person a true naturalist who contents himself with 

 giving a series of hard names to a collection of dried 

 insects or other objects, as it is to assert " that any 

 person, with a little care, may become a tolerably 

 good naturalist the first walk he takes in the fields, 

 without much knowledge of books." 



To observe well the habits and economy of animals, 

 to notice, by the assistance of anatomical examination, 

 the adaptation of structure dependent upon such 

 habits, to have studied the writings of our prede- 

 cessors who have pursued a similiar mode of research, 

 and to apply the information thus obtained to the 

 discovery, not only of the systematic name, and the 

 relationships, more or less remote, existing between 

 the various species of animals, with reference to their 

 arrangement in a natural system*, but also of their 

 relationship with nature in general, the weight of each 

 in the great scale of the universe, and the mutual 

 dependence of animals or plants upon each other, 

 which constitutes that mighty whole which St. Pierre 

 has so well termed the harmony of nature ; this it is 

 which constitutes a knowledge of nature, and he, and 

 he only, who will look at an insect or a plant in this 

 manner, he who will not rest contented with the pos- 

 session of a specimen, or the observation of a fact in 

 its economy, or the knowledge of its name and place 

 in the system, but will give to his views this extent, 

 he only is the good naturalist. 



Having thus laid before our readers a notice of the 

 various grades in the science of entomology, or rather, 

 we might say, in any of the departments of zoology, 

 together with what appears to us to be the most 

 efficacious mode of pursuing the subject in each, we 

 now purpose to trace, as concisely as possible, the 

 rise of entomology, including a sketch of its present 

 state. 



The names of various celebrated men who have 

 given from time to time an impulse to the science of 

 entomology, or who have rendered to it the most 

 signal services, mark the eras of the more remarkable 

 periods in its history. This order, founded upon the 

 growth of knowledge, is certainly preferable to that 

 established upon the lapse of years from century to 

 century. 



Without dwelling upon the Book of Holy Writ, 

 from whence it is evident that the Hebrews had a 

 certain knowledge of the habits of various insects, 

 and had distinguished a certain number of them, the 

 first memorable era is that of Aristotle, since it is in 



* Some persons have either wilfully or ignorantly confounded 

 the mere methodical classification of animals, i. e. their system 

 of names, with the natural system, than which no two things can 

 be wider apart. Thus, in the former, that classification must be 

 the best by which we are enabled with the least labour to arrive 

 at the name of an animal; whereas perfection in the latter can 

 only result from a knowledge and adoption of the numerous and 

 intricate relationships existing amongst animals, whether of 

 affinity (that close relation existing, for instance, between a 

 hive bee and a humble bee,) or that more remote relationship 

 termed analogy, of which an instance may be mentioned in the 

 hornet, the hornet sphinx, and hornet asilus. 



EE 



