OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



31 



ment and direction of things out of the hands of Providence ; 

 but this is a very weak argument, which might with equal 

 reason be adduced to prove that when rats and mice become 

 troublesome to us, we ought not to have recourse to dogs, 

 ferrets, and cats to exterminate them. When any species 

 multiplies upon us, so as to become noxious, we certainly 

 have a just right to destroy it, and what means can be more 

 proper than those which Providence itself has furnished? 

 We can none of us go further or do more than the Divine 

 Will permits ; and he will take care that our efforts shall not 

 be injurious to the general welfare, or effect the annihilation 

 of any individual species. 



Again, with regard to insects that are employed in medicine 

 or the arts, if the apothecary cannot distinguish a Cantharis 

 or blister-beetle from a Carabus or Cetonia, both of which 

 beetles I have found mixed with the former, how can he 

 know whether his druggist furnishes him with a good or bad 

 article ? And the same observation may with still greater 

 force apply to the dyer in his purchase of cochineal, since it 

 is still more difficult to distinguish the wild sort from the 

 cultivated. There are, it is probable, many insects that 

 might be employed with advantage in both these departments ; 

 but unless Entomology be more generally studied by scientific 

 men, who are the only persons likely to make discoveries of 

 this kind, than it has hitherto been, we must not hope to 

 derive further profit from them. It seems more particularly 

 incumbent upon the professors of the divine art of healing to 

 become conversant with this as well as the other branches of 

 Natural History ; for not only do they derive some of their 

 most useful drugs from insects, but many also of the diseases 

 upon which they are consulted, as we shall see hereafter, are 

 occasioned by them. For want of this kind of information 

 medical men run the risk of confounding diseases perfectly 

 distinct, at least as to the animal that causes them. It would 

 be a most desirable thing to have professors in each branch of 

 Natural History in our universities, and to make it indispens- 

 able, in order to the obtaining of any degree in physic, that 

 the candidate should have attended these lectures. We may 

 judge from the good effects that the arts have derived from 



