14 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



practised we are in his word, 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 illustrate each other. 



Who then shall dare maintain, unless he has the hardihood to deny 

 that God created them, that the study of insects and their ways is trifling 

 or unprofitable ? Were they not arrayed in all their beauty, and sur- 

 rounded 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 ? l 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 covering? 2 And 

 shall we think it beneath us to study what he hath not thought it beneath 

 him to adorn and place on this great theatre of creation? Nay, shall we 

 extol those to the skies who bring together at a vast expense the most 

 valuable specimens of the arts, the paintings and statues of Italy and 

 Greece, all of which, however beautiful as works of man, fall short of 

 perfection; and deride and upbraid those who collect, for the purpose of 

 admiring their beauty, the finished and perfect chefs-d'oeuvre of a Divine 

 artist ? May we gaze with rapture unblamed upon an Apollo of Belve- 

 dere, or Venus de Medicis, or upon the exquisite paintings of a Raphael 

 or a Titian, and yet when we behold with ecstasy sculptures that are pro- 

 duced by the chisel of the Almighty, and the inimitable tints laid on by his 

 pencil, because an insect is the subject, be exposed to jeers and ridicule ? 



But there is another reason, which in the present age renders the study 

 of Natural History an object of importance to every well-wisher to the 

 cause of religion, who is desirous of exerting his faculties in its defence. 

 For as enthusiasm and false religion have endeavoured to maintain their 

 ground by a perversion of the text of Scripture, so also the patrons of infi- 

 delity and atheism have laboured hard to establish their impiety by a 

 perversion of the text of nature. To refute the first of these adversaries 

 of truth and sound religion, it is necessary to be well acquainted with the 

 word of God ; to refute the second, requires an intimate knowledge of his 

 works; and no department can furnish him with more powerful arguments 

 of every kind than the world of insects every one of which cries out in 

 an audible voice, There is a God he is Almighty, all- wise, all-good his 

 watchful providence is ever, and every where, at work for the preservation 

 of all things. 



But since mankind in general are too apt to look chiefly at this world, 

 and to regard things as important or otherwise in proportion as they are 

 connected with sublunary interests, and promote our present welfare, I 

 shall proceed further to prove that the study of insects may be productive 



1 " Quaeri fortasse & nonnullis potest, Quis Papilionum usus sit ? Responded, 

 Ad ornatum Universi, et ut hominibus spectaculo sint : ad rura illustranda velut 

 tot bractese inservientes. Quis enim eximiam earum pulchritudinem et varieta- 

 tern contemplans mira voluptate non afficiatur? Quis tot colorum et schematum 

 elegantias natura? ipsius ingenio excogitatas et artifici penicillo depictas curiosia 

 oculis intuens, divina3 artis vestigia eis impressa non agnoscat et miretur?" Rai 

 Hist. Ins. 109. 



2 Nat. Theol 213. 



