4 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 
ractised we are in his word, the more readily shall we discern his truth in 
is works ; for, proceeding from the same great Author, they must, when 
rightly interpreted, mutually explain and illustrate each other. 
Who then shall dare maintain, unless he has the hardihood to deny 
that God created them, that the study of insects and their ways is trifling 
or unprofitable? Were they not arrayed in all their beauty, and sur- 
rounded with all their wonders, and made so instrumental (as I shall 
hereafter prove them to be) to our welfare, that we might glorify and 
praise him for them ? Why were insects made attractive, if not, as Ray 
well expresses it, that they might ornament the universe and be delightful 
objects of contemplation to man?* And isit not clear, as Dr. Paley has 
observed, that the production of beauty was as much in the Creator's 
mind in painting a butterfly or in studding a beetle, as in giving symmetry 
to the human frame, or graceful curves to its muscular covering?” And 
shall we think it beneath us to study what he hath not thought it beneath 
him to adorn and place on this great theatre of creation? Nay, shall we 
extol those to the skies who bring together at a vast expense the most 
valuable specimens of the arts, the paintings and statues of Italy and 
Greece, all of which, however beautiful as works of man, fall short of 
perfection ; and deride and upbraid those who collect, for the purpose of 
admiring their beauty, the finished and perfect chefs-d’ceuvre of a Divine 
artist? May we gaze with rapture unblamed upon an Apollo of Belve- 
dere, or Venus de Medicis, or upon the exquisite paintings of a Raphael 
or a Titian, and yet when we behold with ecstasy sculptures that are pro- 
duced by the chisel of the Almighty, and the inimitable tints laid on by his 
pencil, because an insect is the subject, be exposed to jeers and ridicule ? 
But there is another reason, which in the present age renders the study 
of Natural History an object of importance to every well-wisher to the 
cause of religion, who is desirous of exerting his faculties in its defence. 
For as enthusiasm and false religion have endeavoured to maintain their 
ground by a perversion of the text of Scripture, so also the patrons of infi- 
delity and atheism have laboured hard to establish their impiety by a 
perversion of the text of nature. To refute the first of these adversaries 
of truth and sound religion, it is necessary to be well acquainted with the 
word of God ; to refute the second, requires an enrirere, eremietas of his 
works; and no department can furnish him with more powerful arguments 
of every kind than the world of insects — every one of which cries out in 
—an audible voice, There is a God — he is Almighty, all-wise, all-good —his 
watchful providence is ever, and every where, at work for the preservation 
of all things. 
But since mankind in general are too apt to look chiefly at this world, 
and to regard things as important or otherwise in proportion as they are 
_ connected with sublunary interests, and promote our present welfare, I 
‘< shall proceed further to prove that the study of insects may be productive 
1 “Queri fortasse 2 nonnullis potest, Quis Papilionum usus sit? Respondeo, 
Ad ornatum Universi, et ut hominibus spectaculo sint; ad rura illustranda velut 
tot bractee inservientes. Quis enim eximiam earum pulchritudinem et varieta~ 
tem contemplans mira voluptate non afficiatur? Quis tot colorum et schematum 
élegantias nature ipsius ingenio excogitatas et artifici penicillo depictas curiosis 
oculis intuens, divine artis vestigia eis impressa non agnoscat et miretur?” Rai 
Hist, Ins. 109. 
2 Nat, Theol. 218. 
