468 GENERAL REFLECTIONS ON 



Petahcera, as a group, bear to the Chilognathiform larvee, 

 the object of this Essay will in some measure be fulfilled. 



It would be wrong, however, to close thus, without al- 

 luding to a subject most important to the advancement 

 and general interest of human knowledge, and intimately 

 connected, as 1 conceive, with reflections that cannot fail 

 to rise in the mind of every person who may believe with 

 me, that one principle of arrangement extends throughout 

 nature. It has been said, that a contempt for the exer- 

 tions of intellect under forms different from ours, is as sure 

 a mark of a narrow mind as that hostility, almost to be 

 called hatred, which is sometimes betrayed by men of ta- 

 lent against those sciences which they are incapable of 

 learning. Such is a sentence lately written by one of that 

 school, of Avhich, as he himself observes, it is the peculiar 

 character to view all the sciences with an equal eye. In- 

 deed it would be difficult to find within the whole com- 

 pass of modern philosophy, a remark in which more true 

 learning is displayed, or a maxim, I regret to say, more 

 necessary than this to be impressed on our minds. That 

 we should place the highest value on whatever we may 

 have judged worthy of employing our time, is clearly to be 

 expected; but that we should therefore not only despise 

 but throw obloquy on what others may esteem a proper 

 exertion of their intellect, can only be attributed to igno- 

 rance the most bigoted. " We content ourselves," says 

 the excellent author of the Wisdom of God in the Crea- 

 tion, in the quaint but forcible style of his age, "we con- 

 tent ourselves with the knowledge of tongues, or a little 

 skill in philology or history perhaps, and antiquity, and 

 neglect that which to me seems more natural, I mean Na- 

 tural History and the works of the creation. I do not dis- 



