18 



OBJECTIOI^S ANSWERED. 



which they foresee may be derived from it ; and therefore in 

 defending Entomology I shall first have recourse to the ar- 

 gumentum ad verecundiam, and mention the great names that 

 have cultivated or recommended 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 ^, amongst which insects must be included ; 

 and to give an appropriate name to an object necessarily re- 

 quires some knowledge of its distinguishing properties. Indeed 

 one of the principal pleasures and employments of the para- 

 disiacal state was probably the study of the various works of 

 creation.'^ 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^, 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 distinctions which separate the 

 various tribes of grasshoppers, crickets, &c. {Gryllus^ L.)into 

 different genera*, but also by noticing the different direction 

 of the two anterior from the four posterior legs of insects ; 

 for, as he speaks of them as going upon four legs ^, it is evident 

 that he considered the two anterior as arms. Solomon, the 

 wisest of mankind, made Natural History a peculiar object of 

 study, and left treatises behind him upon its various branches, 

 in ^NV\(^ creeping things or insects were not overlooked^; and 

 a wiser than Solomon directs our attention to natural produc- 

 tions, when he bids us consider the lilies of the field teaching 

 us that they are more worthy of our notice than the most glo- 

 rious works of man : he also not obscurely intimates that in- 

 sects are symbolical beings, Avhen he speaks of scorpions as 

 synonymous with evil spirits^; thus giving into our hands a 

 clue for a more profitable mode of studying them, as furnishing 

 moral and spiritual instruction. 



If to these scriptural authorities we add those of uninspired 

 writers, ancient and modern, the names of many worthies, 



1 Gen. ii. 19. 2 Linn. Fn. Suec. Pr^f. 3 Rom. i. 19, 20. 



4 Levit. xi. 21, 22. Lichtenstein in Linn. Trans, iv. 51,52. 



5 Levit. xi. 20. conf. Bochart, Hkrozoic. ii. 1.4. c. 9. 497, 498. 



6 1 Kings, iv. S3. ^ Luke, xii. 27. s Ibid. x. 19, 20. 



