50 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



verities. And the more accurate and enlarged our knowledge of his works, 

 the better shall we be able to understand his word ; ^nd the more prac- 

 tised 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 surrounded 

 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 contem- 

 plation to man ?^ 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 but- 

 terfly or in studding a beetle, as in giving symmetry to the human frame, 

 or graceful curves to its muscular covering?^ And shall we think it be- 

 neath 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 up- 

 braid those who collect, for the purpose of admiring their beauty, the fin- 

 ished and perfect chef-d'oeuvres of a Divine artist? May we gaze with 

 rapture unblamed upon an Apollo of Belvedere, or Venus de Medicis, 

 or upon the exquisite paintings of a Raphael or a Titian, and yet when we 

 behold with ecstasy sculi)tures that are produced by the chisel of the 

 Almighty, and the inimitable tints laid on by his pencil, because an in- 

 sect 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 endeavored to maintain their 

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

 infidelity and atheism have labored 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 

 worJcs ; 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 



' " Quanri fortasse k iionnuUis potest, Quis PapHionum usus sit ? Respondeo, Ad ornatum 

 Univcrsi, et ut hominihusspcctaculo sint : ad ruraillustranda velut tot bractea* inservientes. 

 Quis euitn cximiam earum puichritudinem ct varietatetn contemplans mira voluptate non 

 afficiatur? Quis tot colorum et schematum clegantias naturoR ipsius ingenio excogitatas et 

 artifici penicillo depictas curiosis oculis intuens, divinae artis vestigia eis impressa non 

 agnbscat et mirelur?" Rai. Hist. Ins. 109. 

 '2 Nat. Theol. 213. 



