470 GENERAL REFLECTIONS ON 



the Wisdom of God in the Creation, that they were called 

 into being. Botanists and Zoologists, we are all in full 

 pursuit of the same sublime object, the natural system. 

 Now, without pretending to any extraordinary foresight, I 

 think it may be asserted that we shall never owe so much 

 knowledge of it to any branch of Natural History, as to 

 Entomology. Time only can show whether this surmise 

 be false ; but if it should prove true, I cannot perceive 

 how it should be in opposition to what we already know, 

 that the despised worm has been employed to teach us 

 our present material nature. 



Man, however, is an animal whose ideas can reach be- 

 yond matter. And from this high privilege and peculiar 

 characteristic it is, that in all ages he has been enabled to 

 make his sentient principle the chief object of his interest 

 and inquiries. There are sequestered moments, I believe, 

 in the life of every person when the mind turns anxiously 

 to the contemplation of its own nature. Whether we 

 ought to look for much information on this perplexing sub- 

 ject from the future discovery of the natural system, it is 

 at present impossible to say : but I cannot refrain from 

 stating, that every step hitherto taken in the investigation 

 of natural affinities, has afforded me additional ground for 

 thinking that there are certain leading rules of connexion 

 which extend beyond the limits of matter. 



Under the head of Definitions, I have already attempted 

 to give briefly those opinions on this momentous question, 

 which seemed to me as indisputable in themselves as they 

 were necessarily connected with a discussion on forms of 

 matter. I may have stated there several propositions that 

 required proof, but none, I verily believe, that may not 

 in some degree be proved. An endeavour has constantly 



