Reflections on some Mineralogical Systems* 287 



strikes the senses; and he has succeeded in uniting the 

 principles which enable him to class and distinguish mi- 

 nerals into a body of doctrine. The colour, brilliancy, 

 fracture, and other properties, have been examined in a 

 point of view the best calculated to attain this object: the 

 advantages which a knowledge of the latent qualities may 

 offer have not been neglected ; — these labours have procured 

 the author the approbation of the learned world. In this 

 manner a great step has been made; and if it does not con- 

 duct us entirely to our object, it at least demonstrates the 

 difficulty of attaining it. M. Werner has said (Memoir of 

 Daubuisson, Journal de Physique, Frimaire, 1 6th year), " that 

 all the minerals which have the same constituent parts, 

 both with respect to quality and quantity, form only one 

 species ; and that all those which differ essentially belong to 

 different species. If, in the same species, "he adds, u divers 

 minerals having the same characters (one only excepted) 

 differ from others in two or three characters '(a greater num- 

 ber would induce a difference of species) from those which 

 we have designated, they form a particular subspecies. 

 Finally, When an individual in a species, or subspecies, 

 presents but one different character, it forms a variety. " 



To the word essentially I have two objections. In the 

 first place, it does not excite the same idea in all minds, and 

 we can have no precise notion respecting it, while it has no 

 fixed signification. In the second place, the chemical means 

 which could enable us to pronounce with some certainty 

 on what belongs essentially or accidentally to the compo- 

 sition of a mineral, are entirely omitted. But let us suppose, 

 fora moment, that we have acquired the necessary knowledge. 

 The chemical composition is therefore the trzie basis of specifi- 

 cation in this system*. We also learn from the above quota- 

 tion, that when two minerals of the same species differ in one 



* To this the Wernerians object, that it is degrading to mineralogy to 

 be dependent on chemistry ; that it is possible for a man to be a very good 

 mineralogist without being previously a chemist ; and that they are two 

 djftrat and independent sciences. In support of these positions, they some- 

 times appeal to the increasing number of botanical nomenclaturists who are 

 not vegetable physiologists: but the allusion only tends to place mechanism 

 before science; the former aie to the latter what sculptors and lapidaries are 



,to scientific mineralogists. The Wernerians, therefore, when they reject 

 chemical science, and build solely on their external characters place them- 

 selves on precisely the same basis as the lapidaries and sculptors; they be- 

 come artists, but not men of science properly so called. They may indeed 

 be most acute observers, very accurate reporters of their observations, and 

 even pioneers in the fields of mineralogical science ; but they ought not to 

 aspire to be world- makers, or attempt to raise any superstructure without 

 the aid of chemistry ; while mineralogy and particularly geology are not less 



. sciences of deduction than of observation. — Thans. 



character, 



