Biographical Memoir of' M. Ilaiiy. 221 



author, and that, after ages of neglect, it suddenly elevated it to 

 the first rank in this department of natural history. This book 

 in fact possesses, in the highest degree, two advantages which are 

 very rarely found combined ; the first of which is, that it is found- 

 ed upon an original discovery, entirely resulting from the g&. 

 nius of the author ; the second, that this discovery is followed out 

 in it, and applied with incredible perseverance even to the varie- 

 ties of minerals. Every thing is grand in the plan, precise and 

 rigorous in the details ; it is completed like the doctrine itself of 

 which it contains the exposition. 



Mineralogy, that department of natural history which has for 

 its object the least numerous and the least complicated produc- 

 tions, is yet that which is the least adapted to a regular classifi- 

 cation. 



The first observers distributed and named minerals in a vague 

 manner, according to their external appearances, and their uses. 

 It was only towards the middle of the eighteenth century that 

 it was attempted to subject them to those methods which had 

 been of so much service to geology and botany. It was ima- 

 gined that genera and species could be established among them 

 as among organized beings ; and it was forgotten that there was 

 wanting in mineralogy the principle which gave rise to the idea 

 of species, namely that of generation, and that even the idea of 

 individuality, such as it is conceived in the organic departments, 

 that is to say, the unity of action of different organs assisting in 

 the maintenance of the same life, could scarcely be admitted. 



It is not by matter that the identity of species is manifested 

 in plants and animals, it is by form, as the very name species 

 presupposes. There are not perhaps two men, two oaks, 

 or two rose-bushes, that have the component substances of their 

 bodies in the same proportion, and even these substances are 

 continually changing; they circulate in that abstract and figured 

 space which is named the form of the being, rather than reside 

 in it. In a few years, there will not remain an atom of what 

 composes our bodies at the present day. Form alone is persist- 

 ent; form alone is perpetuated by being multiplied. Transmit- 

 ted by the mysterious operation of generation to endless series 

 of individuals, it will successively draw into itself numberless 

 molecules of different substances, but all transitory. 



JANUARY MARCH, 1829- Q 



