£92 Professor Metis’s General Reflections on 
his memory to a great extent. Whatever is intended to be re- 
gularly taught must be a science ; for empiricism does not al- 
low of scientific instruction, but must be acquired like an art, 
or a handicraft trade, by being shewn its particular processes, 
or the practical advantages which it admits ; and it is a matter 
of regret that mineralogy should have been so long treated with- 
out a scientific form. This is not to be recommended to begin- 
ners, for the only method from which they can reap advantage 
is the scientific one ; and as, in the development of every science, 
we must endeavour, in mineralogy, to consider the facility with 
which the beginner may be instructed, as one of its principal 
purposes ; and this must be done in a scientific manner, to pre- 
pare the way for the more general diffusion of the science. For 
this purpose, the correctness of the general ideas, and that of 
the expressions, are equally important. With the above men- 
tioned empirical information, we may, in fact, display a great 
deal of erudition ; but this should not dazzle the beginner, for 
empiricism only appears the more truly naked, the more it is 
invested with this ragged covering of learning. 
The systematic nomenclature is the most efficient, and we 
may really say the only means, of confining the arbitrary mode 
of proceeding in giving names to minerals, and in multiplying 
them without use or convenience. Those who, by a process to 
be afterwards explained, have brought an individual unknown 
to them, within the compass of its Species, will be under no em- 
barrassment for a name to it, but will join it to the name con- 
nected with that idea, because this is the more particular object 
of their proceeding. Though it be admitted that this is suffi- 
cient, if the system contains the species to which the individual 
belongs, it may be asked, Of what advantage will it be, if this 
be not the case? Still the system may contain the Genus, or 
the Order, and even then part of the difficulty is already over- 
come. As examples of this, we shall only mention the hemi- 
prismatic hal-baryte, and the axotomous lead-baryte, two new 
species, which have found themselves naturally included in those 
genera, the names of which they now bear. In extreme cases, 
when an individual discovered does not even belong to one of 
the orders known at present, it becomes expedient to furnish 
the mineral with a simple name; its remaining properties being 
