NOT A LAW, STJI GENERIS. 129 



those individuals of exactly alike form, and with all their 

 features in common, are, by analogy, with organic spe- 

 cies, to be termed species. But, however great the num- 

 ber of all the forms in each case, they are referable to a 

 single, generic, or family type, and little skill is re- 

 quired to trace out extreme simplicity amid appar- 

 ent complexity, for all the various modifications are 

 arranged in beautiful order. 



Why are they so arranged ? If a mineralogist should 

 argue, as Darwin argues from a like due subordination 

 of group under group, in descending complexity, he 

 would contend for an absurdity; and hold, that they 

 were evolved, the more complex from the simpler. 

 The fact, however, is — not that they were evolved from 

 one another — but that they started from independent 

 centres, and that the degrees of similarity between 

 them, is referable to the circumstance, that they. were 

 independently evolved from the like, or the same 

 mineral, and were subject to like conditions of tem- 

 perature, &c. The initial force, implied in the depo- 

 sition of each molecule of each crystal, pre-determined 

 a regular, definite structure, and compelled a form 

 which needed to be attained, or, the correlation of 

 the forces involved in the crystal would have been 

 thrown intd disorder, and the forces involved in the 

 crystal would have become so much the less crystal- 

 logenic in character. A truncated crystal may have 

 been long out of a solution ; yet, if restored thereto, it 

 will repair the lost part. If a mineralogist should meet 

 with such a truncated crystal, he, being unconscious 



that it was truncated, should restore it to a solution, 

 12 



