various important subjects in Mineralogy. 289 
of those original representations of genera, & c. nor of the natu- 
ral-historical resemblance, upon which they depend. By the 
distribution itself, we determine the single characteristic marks 
which contain those ideas. The reason of the prevailing confu- 
sion is, that the classification, or the production of the general 
idea referring to the natural system, and the division, or the 
characters of the artificial system, were not sufficiently distin- 
guished, or because it was expected that both of them should be 
found subservient to the same purposes. In every attempt, 
therefore, to construct systems, that may answer the purpose for 
which they are intended in Natural History, we must choose 
either the one or the other, and carry it through the whole range 
of our information with perfect consistency, as we should other- 
wise obtain a mixture of both, which, though it is less objection- 
able than the union of the natural-historical and chemical prin- 
ciples, in the so-called Systems of Mineralogy, and may even in 
some respects be useful, yet cannot be regarded as satisfactory 
in the present scientific state of Natural History. 
In regard to the Natural System, we must finally observe, that 
there can be only one of that kind, and that it is impossible 
different natural systems should exist, because there cannot be 
different lands of natural-historical resemblance. All the at- 
tempts toward constructing it, must, however, be acknowledged 
to be mere approximations to it, the difference of which is 
grounded in their own imperfection. 
The natural system, the only one of which we intend to speak 
at present, having once been completed, we have next to endea- 
vour to connect its unities with certain words, by which the ideas 
and representations may be so expressed as to be conveniently 
applied in writing and speaking, that is to say to construct a 
nomenclature . Nothingis so well calculated to furnish us with an 
idea of the situation in which Mineralogy has hitherto been 
placed, as the consideration of what is usually called its Nomen- 
clature, and of the method daily employed in forming new 
names. Mineralogists seem to be agreed in considering those 
names the best which have no signification ; and if we reckon 
among these the names derived from colours, persons, localities, 
and other accidental circumstances, the truth of this opinion can- 
not be denied. This does not throw a favourable light on the 
