REVERSION, NOT A LAW, STJI GENERIS. 125 



be any such thing as the immutability of the species, 

 of crystals; for, the individual crystals vary, and the 

 species is made up of such individuals. 



Such an argument could not be invalidated, if it 

 were conceded, that the growth of the lost edge was 

 absolutely new growth, and that it was not mere re- 

 pair, or mere reproduction. It is obvious, however, 

 that it is repair only, or reproduction, or Reversion 

 back to the state which existed, in the crystal, previous 

 to its truncation. It is equally obvious, therefore, that 

 there is in the said crystal, no such capacity for un- 

 limited growth, or integration, as Darwin would allege 

 to exist in organisms. It is equally obvious, to a min- 

 eralogist, that those forms, of the crystals, which have 

 not been truncated, are normally immutable; — that is, 

 that no change can take place in them, after they have 

 once assumed their specific, determinate form, save in 

 derogation of that peculiar segregation, or coordina- 

 tion, of forces which make up a crystal. It is equally 

 manifest, that all of the different kinds of crystals, 

 ranging from the simplest to the most complex, are 

 not evolved, one from another; that their beautiful 

 subordination, of group under group, which rivals 

 the arrangement of organisms, is no argument, what- 

 ever, in favor of a view, that they evolved from one 

 another. They, each and every one, on the contrary, 

 were evolved from independent centres, — centres, pos- 

 sibly, in the same matrix, yet perfectly independent 

 centres, so far as the processes of integration are con- 

 cerned. The initial force, involved in the deposition of 

 the first molecule, pre-determined the form, shape, and 



