4 
Cuvier’s Historical Eloge of Werner. 
Two tastes, — we might even say two passions, — attended him 
through life, — the love of minerals, and the love of method. 
He was fond of dividing, and of classifying objects, as well as 
ideas. He was pleased with all those things which could be dis- 
posed in regular order; and from this period of his life, he used 
to purchase books, more for the purpose of arranging them ac- 
cording to a plan, than that of perusing them. 
This double propensity was observable in his first work, the 
Treatise on the External Characters of Minerals, a pamphlet 
of a few sheets, which he published at Leipsic, at the age of 
twenty-four. 
This work is an analysis and minute subdivision of all the 
varieties in the apparent properties of minerals ; every one of 
these varieties is marked by a fixed term ; and the whole of 
these terms was intended to form a definite language, by means 
of which all mineralogists might understand one another. 
This was to render Mineralogy a service similar to that which 
Linnaeus had rendered to Botany ; but it was a service pur- 
chased at the same expence. 
It is certain, that this Vocabulary has given more detail and 
more precision to the science : those who take the trouble to 
apply it, acquire a surprising facility of distinguishing mine- 
rals at first sight ; and the attentive examination which is ne- 
cessary to accommodate the description of these substances to 
the prescribed formula, has led to the discrimination of many 
of them, which would otherwise, perhaps, have long remained 
confounded in the crowd. Yet one cannot help confessing that 
this idiom, which is necessarily pedantic, and which is confined 
in its terms of expression as well as in its words, has given to 
those works which have too servilely employed it, an air of 
pomposity,— a dryness and a tediousness which are more fre- 
quently fatiguing than useful. 
These inconveniences, however, were never greatly felt. Tech- 
nical and semi-barbarous terminologies had been long in fashion. 
For thirty years the fascinating science of Botany had em- 
ployed no other language, and Naturalists, already accustomed 
to so many fetters, were not dismayed by the fear of submitting 
to another. 
