as a Branch of Natural History^ 6ic. 229 



merly separated from each other not only by the chemist, but 

 also by their external characters, brought forward as a proof of 

 the greater importance of crystallographical characters over the 

 chemical and external ones, as well as the union of the telesie and 

 the sapphire, so much boasted of by the chemist in the disputes 

 about precedency, are matters of no consequence whatever in the 

 opinion of the naturalist, although they may have some small de- 

 gree of interest as connected with the history of the science itself 

 § 34. There still remains to be noticed another error into 

 which mineralogists have been often inclined to fall, — it is that of 

 giving to a character or property a degree of importance propor- 

 tioned to the difficulty experienced, to the labour bestowed, and 

 the ingenuity displayed by the observer or experimenter in dis- 

 covering that property. A false analogy between circumstances 

 apparently alike, but really quite dissimilar, seems to have given 

 rise to such a mistaken idea. In the study of the animal king- 

 dom, it is generally found that the most important organs are 

 not those which appear at the surface, but those which are con- 

 cealed in the deep recesses of the interior of the animal. But it 

 is not because such organs as the heart and the brain, for in- 

 stance, are more difficult to study, and require the knowledge, 

 the labour, and the perseverance, of a skilful anatomist to be 

 examined and described, — it is not because latent and of diffi- 

 cult access that they are reckoned more important than the su- 

 perficial organs, which are easily perceived ; but it is as being 

 indispensably necessary to the very life of the animal, as being 

 essential to the most important organic functions, while the ex- 

 ternal organs appear to be mere accessary dependencies, which 

 may even be sometimes suppressed, without the life of the ani- 

 mal being endangered. Now, if because the constituent ele- 

 ments of minerals, equally latent, equally difficult of access, 

 some of which existing only in very minute proportions, re- 

 quiring to be brought to light the most persevering and 

 laborious effiarts of a skilful chemist, were supposed more im- 

 portant than external properties easily ascertained, it is clear 

 that the analogy would be overstrained. It would be true if it 

 was demonstrated that those elements are more necessary to 

 the existence of the being itself than the more external pro- 

 perties. 



