various important subjects in Mineralogy. 207 
taste for the study of nature, the number of descriptions, like 
the number of observations formerly collected, became greatly 
increased, and the descriptions themselves complicated, and lit- 
tle calculated to serve for the distinction of the objects described, 
as the difficulty of finding differences was increased with the 
number of descriptions. It was then almost as difficult to find 
out an object in nature, with their assistance, as without it; and 
it became necessary to resort to a new plan, in order to remedy 
this evil, lest the existing information should become stationary, 
or, perhaps, even be entirely lost. 
The means resorted to was to introduce a scientific process, 
however imperfect it may at first have been, to produce general 
ideas, and to comprehend, within them, the subjects occurring 
in nature. Natural bodies were brought into certain divisions, 
each of which was provided with one, or a few, particular charac- 
teristic marks, to facilitate distinction ; in like manner, the single 
characteristic marks, in the descriptions, were rendered distinct 
from the rest, and a kind of systematic arrangement introduced, 
through which it became possible to give the description of a 
given object, or to recognise the object of a given description. 
It is the logical part of this process that renders it scientific ; 
yet this is not sufficient to become the foundation of the science 
itself ; it only contains the rules, according to which a science 
must be constructed. Already, from the first appearance of a 
scientific mode of procedure, and, still more, as it became de- 
veloped, had narration become succedaneous, and was left over 
to the application to nature of the sciences then forming, al- 
though the views which were obtained of the subject, had not 
yet acquired their necessary clearness *. It would have been a 
most fortunate circumstance, had a change been introduced in 
the name, at the same time, when this change in the subject was 
effected ; for, to this very day, an opinion too generally prevails, 
that Natural History should be History , the more peculiar ob- 
ject of which is to narrate facts that have happened in the pro- 
gress of time. 
If we adopt opinions of this nature, we must unavoidably con- 
sider, as belonging to Natural History, much that is foreign to 
that science ; and if we proceed consistently, we shall find the 
The meaning of this sentence is not quite obvious.— Edit. 
p 2 
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