242 DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY 



centre, and the pyramid itself would have its sides 

 facing the south and the east, more highly inclined 

 to the horizon than those towards the north and 

 west. 



(264*.) Whatever conception we may form of the 

 manner in which the particles of a crystal cohere 

 and form masses, it is next to impossible to divest 

 ourselves of the idea of a determinate figure com- 

 mon to them all. Any other supposition, indeed, 

 would be incompatible with that exact similarity in 

 all other respects which the phenomena of chemistry 

 may be considered as having demonstrated. How- 

 ever, it must be borne in mind that this idea, plau- 

 sible as it may appear, is yet in some degree hypo- 

 thetical, and that the laws of crystallography, as 

 determined from inductive observation, are quite 

 independent of any supposition of the kind, or even 

 of the existence of such things as ultimate particles 

 or atoms at all. 



(265.) Still, that peculiar internal constitution of 

 solid bodies, whatever it be, which is indicated by 

 the assumption of determinate figures, by their 

 splitting easier in some directions than in others, 

 and by their presenting glittering plane surfaces 

 when broken into fragments, cannot but have an 

 important influence on all their relations to external 

 agents, as well as to their internal movements and 

 the mutual actions of their parts on one another. 

 Accordingly, the division of bodies into crystallized 

 and uncrystallized, or imperfectly crystallized, is 

 one of the most universal importance ; and almost 

 all the phenomena produced by those more intimate 

 natural causes which act within small limits, and as 



