Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/303

 the extant Books can enable us to give a competent Judgment in this Matter. And if Travelling far for Knowledge be sufficient to recommend the Ancients to our Imitation, I may observe, that Mr. Edmond Halley, who went to St. Helena, an Island situate in the 16th Degree of Southern Latitude, to take an Account of the Fixed Stars in the Southern Hemisphere, which are never visible to us who live in the Northern; and to Dantzick, to conferr about Astronomical Matters, with the great Hevelius, has taken much larger Journeys than any of the Ancients ever did in the sole Pursuit of knowledge. So much for the Natural History of Bodies not endued with Sensitive Life.

Nsects seem to be the lowest and simplest Order of Animals; for which Reason I shall begin with them. That some are very beneficial to Man, affording him Food and Rayment; as, the Bee, and the Silk-Worm: And others, again,