various important subjects in Mineralogy. 299 
so far also goes Natural History, and no farther. It has no histo- 
rical department, properly so called, because, from the examina- 
tion of the natural-historical properties alone, we cannot deduce 
any thing like a history of one or of a number of natural pro- 
ductions, which history must evidently consist of something very 
distant from what is necessary in the explanation of terminology ; 
that, for instance, the seed of a plant germinates, that the young 
plant itself grows, that it produces flowers and seeds, grows old, 
and finally dies. Hence every thing allied to history r every 
thing that happens to natural productions, their uses, and the 
injuries they occasion, is foreign to our science, and should be 
mentioned merely in the shape of historical notices, in order to 
bring other sciences in connection with it, although the science 
itself has taken its rise from this foreign ground. This is not, 
however, its scientific rise, for,. as a science, it could only prosper 
when planted upon the ground of the natural-historical proper- 
ties ; it means only the first cause of its coming at all within the 
researches of man. 
It is now easy to determine, in what relation natural history 
in general, and mineralogy in particular, should be to the other 
sciences, in so far as they are occupied with the same natural 
bodies. These sciences form the beginning, in a scientific in- 
quiry into the nature of the production; they determine the 
object, and without teaching any thing that does not enter with- 
in the province of Natural History, and thus give it over to other 
sciences, each of which, according to its peculiar character, pro- 
duces a mass of information of a particular kind. Although, in 
themselves, this information be of the highest importance for 
'science, and for the benefit of mankind, yet they lose much or 
the whole of their value, if we do not know the objects to which 
they refer, and which to determine, is neither their object, nor 
does it enter within the reach of their powers. All this is evi- 
dent of itself, yet we often hear that chemistry and mineralogy 
mutually presuppose each other. If we say that chemistry pre- 
supposes mineralogy, we do not mean to intimate that this is 
with a view of grounding its own scientific development upon it, 
but only to have the object of its inquiry determined, and in so 
far it is perfectly true. But nothing at all can be meant, by 
saying that mineralogy presupposes chemistry. For, in order 
