Biographical Memoir of M. Hauy. Z\5 



From this rhomboid of calcareous spar he pretended to deduce, 

 not only the other crystals of calcareous spar, but those of gar- 

 net and hyacinth, which have no similarity of structure. Thus, 

 a philosopher of the first order, perfectly versed in physics and 

 geometry, stopped short on the path of a beautiful discovery ; 

 and it was reserved for a man, who had scarcely begun to oc- 

 cupy himself with science, but who knew how to pursue this 

 truth, as nature would have all her works pursued, by proceed- 

 ing step by step, observing without intermission, and not allow- 

 ing himself to be either hurried on or turned out of the path by 

 his imagination. 



But for the same reason that other mineralogists had not 

 found the right way, they did not apprehend in what Berg- 

 mann*'s differed from it, and they accused M. Haiiy of having 

 borrowed his ideas from him, although he had scarcely heard 

 his name, and had never seen his memoir. They added, as is 

 always done on such occasions, that not only was the discovery 

 not M. Haiiy ^s, but that it was false. 



Rome Delisle, a mineralogist otherwise not without merit, 

 but who had been for a long time examining crystals, with- 

 out so much as imagining the principle of their structure, 

 had the weakness to dispute it, when another had made the dis- 

 covery. He found it pleasant to call M. Haiiy a crystaUoclasU 

 because he broke crystals, as in the Lower Empire they who 

 broke images were called iconoclasts. But, fortunately, we have 

 no heretics in the sciences, excepting those who refuse to follow 

 the improvements of their age ; and such at the present day are 

 Rome Delisle, and those who succeeded him in his petty jean 

 lousy. 



As to M . Haiiy, the only reply that he made to his calum- 

 niators consisted in new researches, and a still more fertile ap- 

 plication of his principle. Hitherto he had only given the so- 

 lution of a curious problem in physics ; but now his observar- 

 tions were to furnish characters of the first importance to mine- 

 ralogy. In his numerous trials on the spars, he had remarked 

 that the stone called pearl-spar, which was then considered as 

 a variety of heayy spar or of sulphate of barytes, has the same 

 nucleus as calcareous spar ; and an analysis which he made of 



