22 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



judiced view of the subject, having recourse to this com- 

 mon-place logic, are sometimes disposed to regard all 

 inquiry into these minutiae of nature as useless and idle, 

 and the mark of a little mind; to remove such prejudice 

 and misconceptions I shall now dilate somewhat upon 

 the subject of Ciri bono ? 



When we see many wise and learned men pay atten- 

 tion to any particular department of science, we may 

 naturally conclude that it is on account of some profit 

 and instruction which they foresee may be derived from 

 it; and therefore in defending Entomology I shall first 

 have recourse to the Argumentum ad verecundiam, and 

 mention the great names that have cultivated or recom- 

 mended it. 



We may begin the list with the first man that ever 

 lived upon the earth, for we are told that he gave a 

 name to every living creature a , amongst which insects 

 must be included ; and to give an appropriate name to 

 an object necessarily requires some knowledge of its di- 

 stinguishing properties. Indeed one of the principal 

 pleasures and employments of the paradisiacal state was 

 probably the study of the various works of creation b . 

 Before the fall the book of nature was the Bible of man, 

 in which he could read the perfections and attributes of 

 the invisible Godhead c , and in it, as in a mirror, behold 

 an image of the things of the spiritual world. Moses 

 also appears to have been conversant with our little 

 animals, and to have studied them with some attention. 

 This he has shown, not only by being aware of the di- 

 stinctions which separate the Gryllidtz (Gryllus, L.) into 



* Gen, ii 19. b Linn Fn. Suec. Praef. r Rom. i. 19, 20. 



