Note 46 — Chapter II · ON MAGNITUDE

Introduction to Entomology, 1826, II, p. 190. K. and S., like many less learned authors, are fond of popular illustrations of the “wonders of Nature,” to the neglect of dynamical principles. They suggest, for instance, that if the white ant were as big as a man, its tunnels would be “magnificent cylinders of more than three hundred feet in diameter”; and that if a certain noisy Brazilian insect were as big as a man, its voice would be heard all the world over: “so that Stentor becomes a mute when compared with these insects!” It is an easy consequence of anthropomorphism, and hence a common char­ac­ter­is­tic of fairy-tales, to neglect the principle of dynamical, while dwelling on the aspect of geometrical, similarity.