298 Professor Mohses Genet al Reflections on 
racteristic, nor any other department of mineralogy, contain any 
information answering the purpose in view. 
If we consider, in general, the demands that may be expected 
to be fulfilled by any part of Natural History, we find, that, un- 
der the circumstances detailed above, mineralogy answers them 
all perfectly ; nay, more, that within its peculiar province none 
can be imagined, to which it does not correspond. But if the 
object in question lies beyond the limits of Natural History, then 
this mode of treatment renders mineralogy utterly unfit to an- 
swer the questions proposed. Nobody will ever be able to infer 
from the mere natural-historical consideration of an individual, 
any thing in regard to its chemical, geological, or other proper- 
ties. We may dispense with examining the opinions that have 
been expressed on the subject ; because it will be obvious to all 
whence they have been derived. Natural History, therefore, 
has its province exactly determined, and its limits distinctly 
marked out, within which it serves every purpose, but admits of 
no application without. 
These commendable properties are conferred upon minera- 
logy, as the natural history of the mineral kingdom, solely by 
making it entirely correspond to the philosophical idea of a 
science. It contains merely natural-historical information ; that 
is, such as proceeds from a comparison of natural-historical pro- 
perties, and all the rest is foreign to it. The development of the 
whole, in its single departments, is in itself systematical ; and 
what it contains of real systems, the systems of crystallization, 
and the mineral system itself, really deserve that name ; because 
they are the result of the application of one single idea to the 
whole compass of a certain kind of information. The science 
itself forms a whole, being intimately connected in all its depart- 
ments, and strictly separated from all other sciences, which is a 
necessary consequence of a systematic mode of treatment. The 
method employed is so simple, that, on that very account, it is 
immutable ; nay, we are entitled to maintain, that other methods, 
compounded of different principles, from the want of consistency 
prevailing in their different departments, will finally, also, be re- 
duced to this method. 
Casting now a glance on the beginning of this paper, we may 
resume, that, so far as the natural-historical properties extend, 
