34 MEMOIR OF WERNER. 



sions on tactics, politics, and medicine. They were 

 sometimes tempted to regard them as allied to the 

 reveries of a maniac. Indeed, we may admit that 

 there must have been something of exaggeration in 

 generalizing to such an extent the relations of a 

 single object ; but it ought also to be kept in mind 

 to what a degree those conceptions, of so varied and 

 exciting a nature, presented in an attractive and of- 

 ten eloquent form, must have warmed the imagina- 

 tions of youth. At that age, when exceptions are 

 so much disliked, and difficulties so easily surmount- 

 ed, the disciples of Werner hurried with enthusiasm 

 upon a field of inquiry which he described to them 

 as so vast and fruitful. A mineralogy purely mine- 

 ralogical v/ould perhaps have disgusted many of 

 them ; but they devoted themselves with ardour to 

 a mineralogy which seemed to present them with the 

 key of nature; and even although, on a final analysis, 

 there might only remain to them the foundation of the 

 science, would they not still have reason to rejoice 

 at the pleasing illusions which had been the means 

 of leading them thither ? 



Some individuals who have since risen to the first 

 rank among the mineralogists of Germany, had wish- 

 ed to hear him, only for the purpose of obtaining a 

 summary knowledge of mineralogy; but having once 

 listened to him, that science became the profession 

 of their lives. 



It is to this irresistible influence that the scienti- 

 fic world has been indebted for those laborious au- 



