Sharp : Value of the Study of Entomology. 



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our assailant ? Is there really any practical good, mental, physical, 

 or material — are we, or the world at large any the better, more 

 advanced on the great road of progress, for such things as these ? I 

 trust there are, else we should have to lament many a wasted hour 

 and misused energy. But there are many phases of any natural study, 

 in its mental effects particularly, where study and recreation are 

 joined, and to a consideration of some of these a short time may 

 perhaps be not disadvantageously bestowed ; and to begin with, we can 

 hardly I think dignify entomology with the name of a science, it is 

 more a part of the groundwork on which science is built, than science 

 itself in its purest form. The true man of science regarding the facts 

 brought to light by the entomologist, the ichthyologist, the botanist, 

 and the rest of them, seizes the labours of them all and with com- 

 prehensive grasp and instructive perception raises on such a foundation 

 those stupendous theories aud sublime generalizations by which we 

 may in some slight manner answer the whys and the wherefores of 

 nature, and obtain some faint glimpse into the working of those 

 eternal laws and that adaptability of design to purpose on which the 

 grand unity of creation is moulded. But entomology is only an 

 investigation of the facts connected with that special branch of nature 

 to which it relates, it merely answers the question what and how, it 

 can of itself never answer the why, and in this character of investiga- 

 tion, entomological research regarded simply by itself, is in no respects 

 different from the study of any other special part of creation ; and 

 yet it would be wrong to infer that the value of simple investigation 

 and record is less than the theoretical utilization of such investigation. 

 The one would be in fact impossible without the other, and the more 

 numerous and accurate the facts recorded of nature are, of just so 

 much the more value are the deductions derived therefrom. 

 Possibly the labours of the simplest worker in the field of nature may 

 be of vastly more importance than those of the most accomplished 

 theorist, if he be nothing more than a theorist ; such a man for 

 instance as Edward of Banff, born in the humblest sphere of life, 

 trained in the hard school of poverty and manual toil, without 

 education, without books, without friends or any sympathy, yet 

 unequalled as a close and patient observer of the way in which 

 nature works. As a collector of her varied forms of life, and as an 

 investigator into her minutest details, this man, although no disciple 

 of science, yet because simple fact was his aim and truth his end, has 

 contributed to the great sum of human knowledge more abundantly 

 than many who claim the prouder title of purely scientific men. 



