46 Reflections on some Mineralogical Systems. 
which he uses in his system. He has been reproached with » 
having derived them from the Greek, because to comprehend 
them it is necessary to have studied that Janguage. But 
to those who know not Greek, these names will enter into 
the class of insignificant; that is to say, among those which 
many persons consider as the best. 
RESULT OF THE SENSUAL SYSTEM OF CHARACTERS— DIF- 
FERENCE BETWEEN EMPIRICISM AND SCIENCE, 
If we consider the mineralogical svstem of Werner with 
respect to these two questions,—Whence did it set out? 
where is it gone ?—the answers will be very different. It is 
true, that the state of mineralogy was very deplorable before . 
him; and all that he found in ancient authors was so vague 
and ill-conceived, founded on ideas so erroneous, that it 
was more likely to lead him into errors than to guide him. 
He has indeed tollowed the same path as they; but we 
may say, that if they have travelled it before him, if they 
have indicated it to him, they have furnished him with very 
few of the means of rendering it practicable ; and he has 
all the merit of setting out from a very remote point, to 
take new steps in aid of his own labour. 
But has he arrived as far as he might have done, had he 
profited by every thing which surrounded him? This Js 
what I cannot absolutely concede to him. Besides the ob- 
which had no analogy, no real or imaginary relation, to something previously 
known, and that he studied to find an articulate sound for which he felt no 
predilection, no choice, nor reason. When we consider the universal and 
ever active principle of the association of ideas, we may venture to aflirm 
that man cannot form any new term which is wholly and absolutely insigui- 
ficant; but that it must have some latent analogy, some similarity or affinity 
either with personal feeling, caprice, or conceit. The question then is, whe- 
ther it is more philosophical and scientific to adopt names called insignificant, 
but which are really founded on some fancy or caprice, as the ancients trans- 
ferred the names of animals to certain parcels of stars; or appellations de- 
rived from some efficient inherent principle, and founded on the ablest ef- 
forts of reason at the period of their adoption. The former have flattered the 
vanity and excited the enthusiasm of weak minds, but never smoothed the way 
to any discovery or improvement ; whereas the laiter always awaken new asso- 
ciations in the mind which receives them, expand the actual basis of know- 
ledge, and become the stepping: stones to new, and, if possible, still more im- 
ortant discoveries. The natural and literary history of the terms oxygen, 
fyauogen, oxymuriatic and muriatic acids, demonstrates the truth of this 
observation; and had these substances been designated by arbitrary and in- 
significant names, or the names of their accidental discoverers, it is more 
than probable that half the experiments to which they have been subjected, 
in order to ascertain the propriety or impropriety of their nomenclature, 
would never have been performed, nor the science of chemistry be so far 
advanced in mathematical certainty and practical utility as we now find it. 
Werner's practice of mineralogical nomenclature is unquestionably the most 
pernicious part of his dogmatic system.— Trans, 
jections 
