INTRODUCTION. 



Other Thus some writers have been contented to divide minerals 



objections. .^ a^g^ Orders, and Genera -, while others, instead of 

 the last, have only Species. Some have Varieties ; and Wer- 

 ner, with a truly German want of taste, has added Sub-species 

 and Sub- varieties ; while, as the terms are merely arbitrary, 

 he might have chosen far mose classical words to express his 

 distinctions. 



The cause of this embarrassment, as has often happened in 

 the progress of science, is owing to the pursuit -of a routine, 

 of a form, which has become antiquated ; while the dis- 

 coveries being wholly new, a new phraseology was indispen- 

 sable. Thus in natural history Linnseus having established 

 the received classification in botany and zoology, the same 

 terms were introduced into mineralogy, without the simple 

 reflection that the subjects were wholly distinct: for the 

 terms, indicating animal and vegetable life, could not without 

 manifest absurdity be applied to dead and inert matter. The 

 consequence was, that as the terms conveyed no idea, they 

 were used indifferently, and what was Class with one author 

 became Order with another j while the Genus of a third, as 

 has been already mentioned, became the Species of a fourth : 

 and a few of deeper sagacity began at last to doubt the pro- 

 priety of one or other of these appellations. 



In fact the terms class, order, genus, and species, convey 

 real and vivid ideas of life. We say a class or an order of 

 men, a genus or species of animals, with complete perspicuity 

 and propriety. N6r is the transition to plants in the least 

 violent, as the word species in particular may be here used 

 with some classical authority. But when applied to minerals 

 they become wholly arbitrary, and convey none of these sub- 

 stantial ideas which belong to real knowledge, and which the 

 mind grasps, so to speak, as solid and tangible : for as the 

 characteristics are here of a totally different kind from those 

 of animal or vegetable life, they should be distinguished by 

 new and appropriate appellations. As we shall never describe 

 an animal from its texture, fracture, or other distinctions of 

 minerals, so it is equally absurd to describe these by attri- 



