OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



21 



knowledge by the study of words, and, as being the immediate 

 and authoritative revelation of his will, is entitled to our 

 principal attention ; the latter leads us to the same conclusions, 

 though less directly, by the study of things, which stands 

 next in rank to that of God's word, and before that of any 

 work of man. And whether we direct our eyes to the planets 

 rolling in their orbits, and endeavour to trace the laws by 

 which they are guided through the vast of space, whether we 

 analyse those powers and agents by which all the operations 

 of nature are performed, or whether we consider the various 

 productions of this our globe, from the mighty cedar to the 

 microscopic mucor — from the giant elephant to the invisible 

 mite, still we are studying the works and wonders of our 

 God. The book, to whatever page we turn, is written by the 

 finger of him who created us ; and in it, provided our minds 

 be rightly disposed, we may read his eternal verities. And 

 the more accurate and enlarged our knowledge of his works, 

 the better shall we be able to understand his word ; and the 

 more practised we are in his word, the more readily shall we 

 discern his truth in his 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 surrounded 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 is it 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 



1 " Quaeri fortasse a nonnuUis potest, Quis Papllionum usus sit? Respondeo, 

 Ad ornatum Unlversi, et iithominibus spectaculo sint : ad rura illustranda velut 

 tot bracteae inservientes. Quis enim exiiniam earum pulchritudinem et varie- 

 tatem conteinplans mira voluptate non afficiatur ? Quis tot colorum et sche- 

 raatuin elegantias naturae ipsius ingenio excogitatas et artifici penicillo depictas 

 curiosis oculis intuens, divinas artis vestigia eis impressa non agnoscat et mire- 

 tur?" Rai. Hist. Ins. 109. 



c 3 



