A Member of this Society, that would thus carefully employ himself in making Room for Merit, by throwing down the worthless and depraved Part of Mankind from those conspicuous Stations of Life to which they have been sometimes advanced, and all this without any Regard to his private Interest, would be no small Benefactor to his Country.

[I]

remember to have read in

Diodorus Siculus

[1]

an Account of a very active little Animal, which I think he calls the

Ichneumon

, that makes it the whole Business of his Life to break the Eggs of the Crocodile, which he is always in search after. This instinct is the more remarkable, because the

Ichneumon

never feeds upon the Eggs he has broken, nor in any other Way finds his Account in them. Were it not for the incessant Labours of this industrious Animal,