220 Professor Necker on Mineyalogij considered 



the same principles and modes of study that have been long 

 adopted in zoology and botany for individuals belonging to these 

 two kingdoms. As the comparison must be instituted in the 

 distinctive characters of these individuals, and as those charac- 

 ters, which, in living individuals, are the organs of which they 

 are composed, are, in the individuals belonging to inorganized 

 nature, the various physical and chemical properties with which 

 they are endowed *, let us first begin by a study, as close and 

 as complete as possible, of these properties, just as the zoologist 

 or botanist begins his labour by abstract considerations and 

 study of the organs, of the phenomena exhibited by them in re- 

 lation to the animals or plants themselves, or to the other bodies 

 in nature, which may have some influence upon them. 



Those preliminary and auxiliary studies, which, in the science 

 of organized beings, are termed Organology, Anatomy, Physio- 

 logy, or animal and vegetable chemistry and physics, and are 

 carried on according to the mode of proceeding of the abstract 

 sciences, will be first considered by us under the name of Mi- 

 neral Chemistry and Physics, and will comprehend the abstract 

 consideration of all the properties or phenomena belonging to, 

 or which are manifested by, inorganic beings. On this part of 

 the science we shall be very brief, and shall only at present in- 

 troduce the mere heads of chapters or nomenclature of the sub- 

 jects that come under this head, referring for more detailed ac- 

 counts to any treatise on mineralogy, and especially to the first 

 part of Beudant''s Traite Elementaire de Mineralugie, 



§ 17. We will next consider under the title of Taxonomy^ 

 adopted by De Candolle, to design the theory of classification, 

 1st, The choice to be made among all the various properties, of 

 such as are best suited for being employed as distinctive charac- 

 ters of the individuals, species, genera, families, and classes ; 2d, 



• I wish it to be understood clearly, that in attempting to compare mine- 

 ral with organic individuals, I do not mean to assert any thing beyond the 

 mere fact, of characters of individuals being found common to both the or- 

 ganic and inorganic nature. That fact alone excepted, every thing is diffe- 

 rent in those two distinct parts of natural history, divided as they are by the 

 more distinct line of demarcation, shewing on one side all that is endowed 

 with, and on the other all that is deprived of, this, the most distinctive of all 

 characters, life. " 



