FORCE OF MORAL RIGHT. 25 



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straws, or lay hold on such, of them as may serve to rescue 

 our hobby from a flood of censure. To take the little life even 

 of a Butterfly is confessedly, and ought to be, matter of pain, 

 and is, so far, a set-off against the pleasures of an Aurelian. 

 Nor is it a set-off which use diminishes, for the more we 

 notice the beauty of Insects, and the more we learn of their 

 movements, the greater becomes our reluctance to mar the 

 former or arrest the latter by an unwilling hastening of the 

 hand of death. It is only our moral right to do so on suffi- 

 cient occasion for which we would contend. True, this is 

 the very thing that all are desirous of proving, who, with old 

 Isaac, feel in the cruel pleasures of their darling pursuits, 

 that " other joys are but toys ;" still, argue as they may, on 

 no principle can it be allowable to toy with torture. To take 

 life quickly, and with far less suffering to the individual 

 than what in the common course of nature it will forever be 

 liable to undergo, all must admit to be a different matter. 

 " Well, be it so," now retorts, perhaps, some fair and loving 

 champion of the weaker cause ; "yet we doubt your privilege 

 to cut off the delight of a Butterfly, taken 'in haste' 

 among the beautiful flowers, for the sake of your own, 

 to be taken 'at leisure' in the scrutiny of her beautiful 

 wings." An "unkindly cut," we own, but the moral right 

 we still assert. Pleasure for pleasure, compare the sensual 

 pleasures of a Butterfly versus the mental pleasure of a Man, 

 such as can scarcely fail to be excited by a close examination 



