Reflections on some Mineralogical Systems. 47 
jections in the details which I haye already made to two 
parts of his system, I shall make three other charges ge- 
nerally to the method of Werner. He has made all his 
appeals to very incompetent judges—our senses; he has 
stopped to describe instead of defining ; and he has attempt- 
ed to exclude the aid of other sciences in order to render 
mineralogy independent in its means, q 
‘Far from avowing that the first of these objections is 
really one, the partizans of Werner consider it as a very 
great advantage that he appeals solely to our senses, as they 
are the unchangeable judges of properties which do not 
vary ;-and much stress is laid on the stability of external 
characters. While the other means of diagnosis and of clas- 
sification change, it is said, from day to day, the external 
characters remain the same; and that which has served to 
distinguish a mineral to-day, will serve the same during a 
thousand years ; whereas, on the contrary, not a month passes 
without some considerable change in chemistry*, The 
senses of the human species, according to all appearance, are’ 
the same that they were since the creation of man; and the 
properties of the mineral kingdom have no more changed 
than they. But from one individual to another their per- 
fection and their delicacy constantly vary. This stability, 
therefore, of the means of judging external characters, is 
but apparent; it exists from one generation to another, but 
it is null between individuals. Hence the stability of ex- 
ternal characters becomes illusory. 
But, cven granting to the applications of our senses more 
advantages than they really posses, their effect would be to 
retard the progress of ali knowledge in which they should 
be employed as exclusive means, and to prevent us from 
€ver attaining that state which is designated by the name 
of science. It must be remembered, that the march of the 
latter is progressive; that each day adds something to its 
precision, and some principle which becomes the basis of 
new improvements. Its treasures are like an inheritance 
which prospers in the hands of those to wkom it has de- 
volved; they offer incessantly new riches, added to those 
which have already been amassed during preceding cen- 
* This capability of change occurs only in those arts and sciences which 
are susceptible of improvement with the progress of knowledge. To boast 
therefore of the uniform stability or stationariness of any science, is hut to 
convert one of the d1e.test defects in any branch of human knowledge into 
a superiative merit, If mineralogy was henceforward to remain in the state 
it is now placed by Werner, it would be as useless to society, as unworthy 
of human study and genius, as the fancied music of the spheres was to the 
ancients.—'l Rang, 
turies. 
