THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 71.] 
PHILOSOPHY. 
One of the striking peculiarities of 
the present race of English entomo- 
logists is an almost entire absence of 
a philosophical spirit; narrow-minded- 
ness and prejudice are exhibited by 
them in the extreme of caricature. 
Take, for instance, the double-brooded 
controversies that have from time to 
time enlivened the pages of the ‘ Zoolo- 
gist;’ almost every writer appears to 
have thought that his experience ought 
to be decisive of the question, and 
that for any one to maintain that a 
species which he had found single- 
brooded was double - brooded implied 
an extraordinary perverseness of cha- 
racter, not in the insect, but in the 
observer. Barely did it appear to have 
occurred to the contending parties that 
species might be double -brooded in 
some seasons, single-brooded in others ; 
nay, that even in some localities 
species which were elsewhere single - 
brooded might there be regularly 
double- brooded. 
It was the old contest of the gold 
and silver shield, and neither party 
seemed to think for a moment that 
there might be two sides to a ques- 
tion. 
[Price Id. 
“As for double -broods, so often af- 
firmed and controverted by writers, 
these vary according to the latitude, 
and frequently according to the tem- 
perature of certain years. It would 
therefore .be wrong to lay too greta a 
stress upon the question of a species 
being single or double -brooded.” In 
the above sentence, which will be 
found in the Introductory Chapter of 
M. Guenee’s new volume, that author 
has, in a true philosophic spirit, dealt 
a heavy blow at the prejudiced spirit 
which insists that what occurs at 
one locality shall give the law to 
what must occur at every other lo- 
cality. 
No one can read this volume of 
M. Guenee’s ‘Geometry’ without being 
struck with the vast extent to which 
it is imbued with a real impartial 
philosophy ; and though we can well 
fancy some would have preferred that 
M. Guenee’s authority had been used 
blindly to endorse their views, still 
those interested in the onward pro- 
gress of the Science will be glad to 
find that not only in this, but in 
other instances also, crushing blows 
have been dealt by a polite French- 
man at ignorance and prejudice. We 
shall recur to some of these on a 
future occasion. 
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1858. 
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