46 MEMOIR OF LATREILLE. 
" "What, moreover, can I say to you respecting 
the works he has left, Avith which you are as well 
acquainted as I am myself. 
" I should not certainly, in such a case, before 
other men and in the presence of any other assem- 
bly, have been silent respecting the works of genius 
which procure for this inanimate bust the honour 
of such an inauguration. 
" But before conveying a full comprehension of 
the merits of him w^hom it represents, it would have 
been necessary to show the importance of the science, 
so much despised by the vulgar, to which he de- 
voted his long and laborious life. 
" I should have been obliged to point out how 
all the parts of natural history are incomplete with- 
out that of insects, not only because it is in itself 
the most considerable by the number of the indivi- 
duals Avhich it embraces, but also because it is con- 
nected with all the rest. 
" It would have been necessary for me likewise 
to prove that it is at once the most difficult, the 
most extensive, and the most philosophical of them 
all ; since it is it which shows the phenomena of 
life and all the mysteries of instinct under the most 
singular and varied aspects; since it is it which 
best reveals to our view the fecundity, power, and 
resources of Nature, along with its innumerable 
diversities in form and colours. 
" I should then have to direct attention to the 
fact, that the greatest geniuses who have cultivated 
natural history ; that those w4io have rendered their 
