I cannot conclude this long chapter better than in the words of Mr. Stillingfleet. “Many are apt to treat with contempt any man whom they see employed in poring over a moss, or examining an insect, from day to day, thinking that he spends his time and his life in unimportant and barren speculations; yet were the whole scene of nature laid open to our views, were we admitted to behold the connections and dependences of every thing on every other, and to trace the œconomy of nature through the smaller, as well as greater parts of this globe, we might, perhaps, be obliged to own that we were mistaken; that the Supreme Architect had contrived his works in such a manner, that we cannot properly be said to be unconcerned in any one of them; and, therefore, that studies, which seem upon a slight view to be quite useless, may in the end appear of no small importance to mankind. Nay, were we only to look back into the history of arts and sciences, we must be convinced that we are apt to judge over hastily of things of this nature. We should there find many proofs that he who gave this instinctive curiosity to some of his creatures, gave it for good and great purposes, and that he rewards with useful discoveries all these minute researches. “It is true, this does not always happen to the searcher, or his contemporaries, nor even sometimes to the immediate succeeding generation; but I am apt to think, that advantages of one kind or other always accrue to mankind from such pursuits; some men are born to observe and record what perhaps by itself is perfectly useless, but yet of great importance to another who follows and goes a step further, still as useless; to him another succeeds, and thus by degrees, till at last one of a superior genius comes, who laying all that has been done before this time together, brings on a new face of things, improves, adorns, exalts human society. “All those speculations concerning lines and numbers, so ardently pursued, and so exquisitely conducted by the Grecians, what did they aim at? or what did they produce for ages? a little arithmetic, and the first elements of geometry, were all they had need of. This Plato asserts; and though, as being himself an able mathematician, and remarkably fond of these sciences, he recommends the study of them; yet he makes use of motives that have no relation to the common purposes of life. “When Kepler, from a blind and strong impulse, merely to find analogies in nature, discovered that famous one between the distance of the several planets from the sun, and the periods in which they complete their revolutions, of what importance was it to him or the world? “Again; when Galileo, pushed on by the same irresistible curiosity, found out the law by which bodies fall to the earth, did he, or could he foresee that any good would come from his ingenious theorems; or was any immediate use made of them?