242 



On Mr, Ckenevix* Attack 



which I mean to take. If I shall be so fortunate as to place the 

 subject in its proper point of view, 1 trust I shall promote the 

 cause of science, and make some compensation to the feelings 

 of a nation^ which Mr. Chenevix appears to me to have treated 

 with harshness and injustice. 



I have a very high opinion of Mr. Chenevix, both as a 

 chemist, and as a man of talents, and' regret exceedingly that 

 he seems disposied to abandon that career of experimental inves- 

 tigation in which he was proceeding with so much credit to 

 himself, and benefit to the science to which he seemed so de- 

 voted. I hope this change of taste was not occasioned by the 

 mistake into which he fell respecting palladium. From the very 

 nature of chemistry, mistakes must now and then occur, not- 

 withstanding every possible caution. Nor do I recollect any 

 chemist who has not occasionally fallen into them, except 

 perhaps Dr. Black and Mr. Cavendish. It is not the unavoidable 

 errors, which those who cultivate this delightful but intricate 

 science must occasionally commit, that have such a tendency to 

 injure their credit as philosophers, as the indulgence of that 

 supercilious or rather ludicrous style, which is suited only to 

 comedy and burlesque, and not at all adapted to the gravity of 

 science. I do not know what effect Mr. Chenevix^s attack upon 

 ^ the Wernerian method of mineralogy produced upon others; 

 but, for my own part, I must acknowledge that it was not Werner 

 and the Wernerian method which sunk in my estimation, but 

 the author of the Reflections : and this effect was increased ten- 

 fold by Mr. Chenevix's appendix to the English translation of 

 his essay. 



It may be necessary to premise in the first place, for the sake 

 of the general reader, that there are two systems which at present 

 divide the mineralogicai world ; namely, the system of Werner, 

 . Professor of Mineralogy at Freyberg in Saxony, which has been 

 generally embraced in almost every part of Europe and America; 

 and the system of the Abbe Haiiy, which has been adopted, 

 though not universally, by the French, and I believe also by 

 several British mineralogists. Werner may be considered as the 

 founder of mineralogy as a science ; for before his time it was 

 not entitled to the name. Haiiy came later ; and was assisted 

 in his system by the theory of Bergman, and the previous labours 

 of Rome de Lisle. 



The object of Mr. Chenevix's reflections is to prove that the 

 system of Werner is destitute of all merit ; that it teems with 

 absurdities and contradictions, and is unworthy of the attention 

 of a man of science : while the system of Haiiy is excellent in 

 every respect, simple, exact, and truly scientific. Not satisfied 

 with this sweeping preference, he attacks the Germans as a 

 nation, and will not allow them to possess the smallest merit 



