as a Branch of Natural History^ S^c. 217 



ist already, the chemist never thinks of troubling, himself any 

 more with them. One of the best proofs of this assertion is the 

 celebrated Berzelius"* chemical arrangement of minerals, in which 

 not the smallest attempt to any thing like description is made, 

 but which consists entirely of abstract formulae of composition. 



§ 11. We have insisted upon the division of sciences into 

 separate branches, and upon the distinction which must be made 

 between the sciences acting in their own peculiar sphere, or 

 merely as auxiliary to another science, because we have thought 

 it essential before we come to inquire whether mineralogy be- 

 longs to natural history or not, to establish the position that na- 

 tural history was really a distinct branch of the great tree of 

 human knowledge. 



§ 12. Having now shown that natural history is the study of 

 individuals, the question is, whether there are individuals in the 

 mineral kingdom, for if such is the case, those individuals fall 

 necessarily into the domain of natural history. If there are no 

 individuals, and if there is nothing in the mineral kingdom to 

 study but abstract properties unconnected with each other, then 

 of course mineralogy is not a distinct science, and natural philo- 

 sophy and chemistry must take upon themselves the considera- 

 tion of such of the properties of inorganized bodies as fall un- 

 der their relative departments. Besides, in this view of minera- 

 logy, we would strongly urge the necessity of giving up entire- 

 ly the mode of classification into species, genera, families, &c., 

 divisions foreign to the common use and language of chemistry, 

 while they are, when applied to individual beings, quite proper 

 to natural history, and essential to its progress. 



But such is not our opinion, for after a rather long and ab- 

 struse inquiry into what is to be understood by the term indi- 

 vidual, an inquiry which we leave entirely to the work of which 

 the present notice is a mere precursor, we have become con- 

 vinced, with Mohs, that there exists in the mineral kingdom real 

 and perfectly characterised individuals, — that these individuals 

 are the crystals, not the integrant molecules, as some have af- 

 firmed, for these latter are mere conceptions of our mind, ha- 

 ving neither tangible shape nor real existence. These mineral 

 individuals are not the primitive forms of crystals, but all the 



