OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 53 



which it does contain, in an order often so arbitrary and 

 defective, that it is difficult to discover even the page con- 

 taining the word you are in search of. Can it be denied, 

 then, that they are most meritoriously employed who de- 

 vote themselves to the removal of these defects — to the 

 perfecting of the system — and to clearing the path of fu- 

 ture economical or physiological observers from the ob- 

 structions which now beset it? And who that knows the 

 vast extent of the science, and how impossible it is that 

 a divided attention can embrace the whole, will contend 

 that it is not desirable that some labourers in the field 

 of literature should devote themselves entirely and exclu- 

 sively to this object ? Who that is aware of the import- 

 ance of the comprehensive views of a Fabricius, an II li- 

 ger, or a Latreille, and the infinite saving of time of which 

 their inquiries will be productive to their followers, will 

 dispute their claim to rank amongst the most honourable 

 in science? 



II. No objection, I think, now remains against ad- 

 dicting ourselves to entomological pursuits, but that which 

 seems to have the most weight with you, and which in- 

 deed is calculated to make the deepest impression upon 

 the best minds — I mean the charge of inhumanity and 

 cruelty. That the science of Entomology cannot be pro- 

 perly cultivated without the death of its objects, and that 

 this is not to be effected without putting them to some 

 pain, must be allowed; but that this substantiates the 

 charge of cruelty against us, I altogether deny. Cruelty 

 is an unnecessary infliction of suffering, when a person is 

 fond of torturing or destroying God's creatures from 

 mere wantonness, with no useful end in view ; or when, 



