ON GEOLOGY AND GEOGNOSY. 
409 
science of which I now speak. For the subjects about 
which we reason are so hid from our view, and so com- 
pletely beyond the reach of any thing like a thorough in- 
Testigation, that it is nearly as unlikely we shall ever fully 
ascertain the manner of their formation, as it is unlikely we 
shall ascertain whether there are inhabitants in the moon 
or no. The subject, however, certainly has abundant in- 
terest without this, without any speculations and conjec- 
tures about the modes of original formation — as much 
interest, I believe, as Botany has, or Zoology, or even 
Astronomy itself. Now, what botanist, or what zoologist, 
when he finds a new plant, or a new animal, puzzles him- 
self and his readers, by endeavouring to ascertain how it 
was formed, or how it came to be in the place in which he 
found it ? It is sufficient for him to know what place in 
his system the plant or the animal is to be referred to, what 
are its distinguishing properties, what are its uses, econo- 
mical, medical, or ornamental. So in Mineralogy. It is 
sufficient, I conceive, to ascertain the disthiguishing pro- 
perties and uses of a simple or compound mineral, of a 
rock or a mountain, a stratum or a vein. Why speculate, 
and fancy, and suppose, and take for granted, and bring 
our science into contempt, by what are called Theories of 
the Earth? Weuner, in the comprehensiveness of his 
mind, seems to have felt this impropriety, and, in order to 
avoid it, introduced the term Geognosy,. by which he meant 
to distinguish the legitimate and useful department of the 
science of Mineralogy, or rather of Geology, from the pure- 
ly fanciful and useless part of it, which consists in pretend- 
ing to explain how the Earth was at first formed, and how 
the successive changes it may have, as a whole, from time 
to time, undergone, took place. Geology he leaves to ex- 
press this, which it had been too often understood to do 
(though Geogony is the more appropriate term) ; and 
