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have the fame opportunities of improvement, and the fame affiftances with our predeceffors; why do we not make use of them? The microscope which has discovered to them fo many wonders, till then ununknown, has equal wonders in store for us. That inftrument withdraws the veil, which conceals nature from our eyes, and makes, if we may use the expreffion, an elephant of a fly, by exhibiting it to us fixteen millions of times larger than it really is.

These reflections on. the difcoveries that still remain to be made in the world of infects are the fruit of my experience. For many years I have applied myself to this study. I have obferved those minute animals fometimes with the affiftance of nature alone, and fometimes with the aids which art had procured me; but I was always convinced that the fubject was not exhaufted. In this belief I do not hesitate to prefent this work to the public, notwithstanding fo many others have preceded it. Among the great number of new remarks I have made there may be fome that will not be difpleafing to my readers.

This work will therefore be compofed of my own obfervations, and of thofe of others, which mutually support each other. When mine do not appear fufficient, I fhall call thofe of others to my aid. In this cafe I fhall endeavour to borrow with difcretion and fidelity. For this end I shall follow the authors who are moft exact, and moft to be depended on; and I fhall mention to whom I am indebted for my obfer-. vations. As to method, I will not follow that of

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author whatever. It is well known that fome, after having distinguished infects into feveral claffes, have divided their work into as many parts as there are different fpecies. Others have been content to give their obfervations just as they occurred without any other arrangment then chance fuggefted. I fhall begin by making an exact and general divifion of infects; after which I fhall treat in detail of their parts and qualities, inftead of confining myself to a mere Natural history, and I will endeavour to difpofe my readers to attribute to God, all thofe miracles that I fhall lay before them.

But a compleat hiftory of infects, muft not be expected here; the thing is impoffible. How is fuch an amazing number of small animals to be inveftigated? How many fwim on the furface of the fea, or lurk at the bottom of the deep that we can form no idea of; who can tell the number of thofe that fwarm in the bottom of rivers, in marfhes and ftagnant waters, and which never appear on the furface? How many unknown infects may there not be in thofe countries into which no traveller has hitherto entered? So true is the remark of the fon of Sirach!" The diversity of animals, is one of the most incredible and won"derful works of the Creator. However much we may speak of them, we fhall never declare them all.

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Many things are hidden, greater than those we "know, and we have only feen a part of his works."

D

INSECTO-THEOLOGY

BOOK I.

CHAP. I.

OF THE CREATION AND GENERATION OF INSECTS!

THERE is nothing in the univerfe which does not

owe its existence to fome caufe different from the universe itself. To this caufe must be attributed the different forms of things, and their exiftence in one form, rather than in another. This cannot be denied, without obliging us to maintain, that every thing in nature, fprang from nothing. But to what would fuch an abfurd opinion lead? Surely to two contradictions equally palpable. The first, that nothing had produced fomething at the very time when it was not what it was neceffary it fhould be, in order to its producing; the latter that fome one thing had produced itfelf; which fuppofes it to have existed before its own formation.

As Infects make a part of those bodies that com pose the universe, they are fubjected, in common with every other, to this general law. They have a principle of existence diftinct from themselves, a principle from which they receive their nature and form, and which retains them conftantly in that very form, though it is eafy to conceive that they might have had a different one. For in the fame way as a painter, who works from fancy, may reprefent Infects whose poffible exiftence is only imaginary, and animals of uncommon fhapes; grafshoppers for inftance, like thofe in the Apocalypfe, with the face of a man, the hair of a woman, the teeth of a lion, the tail of a fcorpion, or any thing fill more incongruous which his imagination can fuggeft; in the fame way might the infects which exift in nature have received from the creative principle a form, different from that they actually have, and which distinguishes them from every other living creature.

Now the queftion is to know what this principle' is, which hath formed infects fuch as they are; whether it refides originally in themselves, or if it emanates from fome extrinfic power. It cannot be faid to refide in themfelves; in that cafe they would be the authors and mafters of their own existence; they might change their form at pleasure, they could alfo make themselves immutable and immortal. But far from poffeffing this independance they are fo fubjected to the laws of their fpecies, that a flea can never produce a wafp, nor a bee a grasshopper; that the parts they are compofed of grow impotent through ufe, change and perish; and that if by any accident they lofe a limb they cannot repair that lofs, by giving themselves another.

We are acquainted only with two orders of fubfances, one material, the other immaterial. The ma

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