MEMOIR OF WERNER. 
21 
preserved a few of these pieces, and, when he shew- 
ed his collection, which soon became one of the rich- 
est in Europe, he seldom failed to draw attention to 
these small beginnings of it, as if he wished to shew 
a kind of gratitude for the first sparks which proved 
the source of such abundant light. 
It was intended that he should engage in the bu- 
siness of mining, and as the laws of Saxony require 
that those who embrace this profession should be re- 
gularly licensed, he first attended the courses of me- 
tallurgy in the school of Freyberg, and subsequently 
those of jurisprudence in the University of Leipsic. 
Two prevailing tastes, or, it may be rather said, 
two passions, attended him through life — the love of 
minerals, and the love of method. He delighted in 
dividing and classifying things, like ideas. What- 
ever admitted of being arranged, gave him pleasure ; 
and when he began to purchase books, he seemed to 
do so rather for the purpose of arranging them me- 
thodically, than in order to read them. Both these 
propensities were conspicuous in his first work, the 
Treatise on the External Characters of Minerals, a 
pamphlet of a few sheets, which he published at 
Leipsic when he was twenty-four years of age. It 
comprises an analysis and minute subdivision of all 
the variations in the apparent properties of minerals. 
Each of these properties is designated by an appro- 
priate term, designed conjointly to form a definite 
language, by means of which all mineralogists may 
be readily understood. 
This was rendering to mineralogy a service eimi- 
