as a Branch of Natural History, Sfc. 241 



of our notion of mineral species. We shall only point to 

 the organized kingdom, to show that similar objections might 

 equally be made to the notion of animal or vegetable species. 

 What can be more numerous than the species contained in the 

 genera Sylvia, Muscicapa, Psittacus, Fringilla, Anas, &c. in 

 the birds; Helix, Conus, Tellina, Venus, &c. in the mollusca; 

 Geranium, Erica, &c. in the plants ; and what a small degree 

 of interest and importance is attached to the greatest part of the 

 specific distinctions in those genera ? Nevertheless, such consi- 

 derations have never induced naturalists to alter the notions of 

 the species. 



As for the difficulty and length of the description of^ second- 

 ary forms, we would refer to the chief monographs in zoology 

 and botany, and especially to Temminck's or Bechstein''s de- 

 scription of European birds, and ask whether it would not be 

 possible, even by a verbal description, to characterize in less 

 space the most complicated crystal, than an animal or a plant, ^ 

 not to speak of the use of such crystallographical symbols as 

 those of Haiiy or Mohs, which would abridge and simplify con 

 siderably such definitions. 



Another much more plausible objection would be to point 

 to the crystallographical laws themselves, or to the simple forms 

 of which, according to Haiiy, and especially to Mohs, each com- 

 plicated form appears to be composed, as more proper to be as- 

 sumed as the mineral species. In this objection we can but see 

 a confusion of abstract ideas, with positive beings, and a wrong 

 application of a method valuable surely in abstract sciences, but 

 quite opposite to the spirit of natural history. The method of 

 analytical abstraction followed by mathematical combination, is 

 entirely foreign to natural history, and is perhaps too simple a 

 contrivance for the manifold purposes and points of views which 

 this science entertains. However, it may be well for us always 

 to remember, that positive and really existing beings are the only 

 objects of the contemplation of natural history ; and surely no- 

 body will pretend to say that, in the triform sulphuret qflead^ 

 the three simple forms, the cube, the octahedron, and the dode- 

 cahedron, which are supposed to be combined in this compound 

 form, have, or ever had, any existence independent of the tri- 

 form individual crystal. 



JANUARY*-MAKCH 1832. E 



