OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 59 



claim, with reference to the necessity of " always having something going 

 forward " towards the enjoyment of life, " Happy they who can create a 

 rose-tree or erect a honey-suckle; that can watch the brood of a hen, or 

 see a fleet of their own ducklings launch into the water ! "^ And, like 

 the preceding class, they collect valuable materials for the use of more 

 active laborers, being thus at least upon a par with the majority of book- 

 collectors and antiquaries. 



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 

 certainly 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 mathematics, 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 evidence, a calculation of the chances of error as ardu- 

 ous 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 lepidop- 

 terous insects of a single district — the Wiener Verzeichniss, which occupy 

 above two hundred octavo pages^, and must have cost the learned author 

 nearly as much labor of mind as the Ductor Duhitandum 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 expe- 

 rienced 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 valu- 

 able 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 possi- 

 bly amuse himself with such investigations.^ But many an entomologist 

 who has felt the delicious sensation attendant upon the indisputable ascer- 

 tainment 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 



> Letter to Dr. Wharton. Mason's Life of Gray, p. 28. 



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



