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LETTER IX. 



BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS, 

 INDIRECT BENEFITS. 



My last letters contained, I must own, a most melancholy 

 though not an overcharged picture of the injuries and de- 

 vastation which man, in various ways, experiences through 

 the instrumentality of the insect world. In this and the 

 following I hope to place before you a more agreeable scene, 

 since in them I shall endeavour to point out in what respects 

 these minute animals are made to benefit us, and what ad- 

 vantages we reap from their extensive agency. 



God, in all the evil which he permits to take place, 

 whether spiritual, moral, or natural, has the ultimate good of 

 his creatures in view. The evil that we suffer is often a 

 countercheck which restrains us from greater evil, or a spur 

 to stimulate us to good : we should therefore consider every 

 thing, not according to the present sensations of pain, or the 

 present loss or injury that it occasions, but according to its 

 more general, remote, and permanent effects and bearings ; 

 — whether by it we are not impelled to the practice of many 

 virtues which otherwise might lie dormant in us — whether 

 our moral habits are not improved ~ whether we are not 

 rendered by it more prudent, cautious, and wary, more 

 watchful to prevent evil, more ingenious and skilful to 

 remedy it — and whether our higher faculties are not brought 

 more into play, and our mental powers more invigorated, by 

 the meditation and experiments necessary to secure ourselves. 

 Viewed in these lights, what was at first regarded as whoUy 

 made up of evil, may be discovered to contain a considerable 

 proportion of good. 



This reasoning is here particularly applicable : and if the 

 ultimate benefit to man seems in any case problematical, it is 



