OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 23 



But this is the smallest half of the value of their pursuit. With what 

 view is the study of the mathematics so generally recommended ? Not cer- 

 tainly for any practical purpose not to make the bulk of those who attend 

 to them astronomers or engineers. But simply to exercise and strengthen 

 the intellect to give the mind a habit of attention and of investigation. 

 Now for all these purposes, if I do not go so far as to assert that the mere 

 ascertaining of the names of insects is equal to the study of the mathe- 

 matics, I have no hesitation in affirming that it is nearly as effectual ; and 

 with respect to giving a habit of minute attention, superior. Such is the 

 intricacy of nature, such the imperfection of our present arrangements, 

 that the discovery of the name of almost any insect is a problem, calling in 

 all cases for acuteness and attention, and in some for a balancing of evi- 

 dence, a calculation of the chances of error as arduous as are required in a 

 perplexed law case, and a process of ratiocination not less strict than that 

 which satisfies the mathematician. In proof of which assertion I need 

 only refer any competent judge to the elaborate disquisitions of Laspeyres, 

 called for by one work alone on the lepidopterous insects of a single dis- 

 trict the Wiener Verzeichniss, which occupy above two hundred octavo 

 pages \ and must have cost the learned author nearly as much labour of 

 mind as the Ductor Dubitantium did Bishop Taylor. 



Do not apprehend that this occasional perplexity is any deduction from 

 the attractions of the science : though in itself, in some respects, an evil, 

 it forms in fact to many minds one of the chief of them. The pursuit 

 of Truth, in whatever path, affords pleasure : but the interest would cease 

 if she never gave us trouble in the chase. Horace Walpole used to say, 

 that from a child he could never bring himself to attend to any book that 

 was not full of proper names ; and the satisfaction which he felt in dry 

 investigations concerning noble authors, and obscure painters, is experi- 

 enced by many an entomologist who spends hours in disentangling the 

 synonymy of a doubtful species. Nor would it be easy to prove that the 

 wordy researches of the one are not to every practical purpose as valuable 

 as those of the other. We smile at the Frenchman told of by Menage, 

 that was so enraptured with the study of heraldry and genealogy as to 

 lament the hard case of our forefather Adam, who could not possibly 

 amuse himself with such investigations. 2 But many an entomologist, 

 who has felt the delicious sensation attendant upon the indisputable 

 ascertainment of an insect's name after a long search, will feel inclined 

 to indulge in similar grief for the unhappy lot of his successors, when all 

 shall be smooth sailing in the science. 



But in behalf of those who are more eminently entitled to be called 

 entomologists those who, not content with collecting and investigating 

 insects, occupy themselves in naming and describing such as have been 

 before unobserved ; in instituting new genera or reforming the old; and, 

 to say all in one word, in perfecting the system of the science, still 

 higher claims can be urged. Suppose that at this moment our dictionaries 

 of the French and German languages were so very defective, that we were 

 unable by the use of them to profit from the discoveries of their philoso- 

 phers ; the labours of a Michaelis being a sealed book to our theologists, 

 and those of La Place to our astronomers. On this supposition, would 



Illig. Mag. ii. 33. iv. 3. 2 Andrew's Anecdotes, 152. 



c 4 



