5 
Cuvier’s Historical Eloge of Werner. 
We might almost believe, that if any one was dismayed by 
this new creation, it was Werner himself, and that if he wrote 
so little after his first Essay, it was that he might escape the 
trammels which he had imposed upon others. Fortunately 
this performance, accommodated as it was to the taste of his 
nation, became a source of fame to himself, and procured for 
him the means of communicating his ideas in a manner less 
troublesome to him. 
In 1775 he was appointed Professor and Inspector of the 
Cabinets at Freyberg. It thus became his duty to devote 
himself without interruption, to that which formed the most 
lively of his inclinations, — and he was stationed in that can- 
ton which was best adapted to satisfy his wishes, — that can- 
ton, indeed, of all Europe, in which the greatest variety of 
minerals is produced, and which has been traversed in all di- 
rections, for the greatest length of time, by the labours of mi- 
ners. 
Accordingly, from this period, all his labours were devoted 
to one object, — to Mineralogy. But this single science, made 
fruitful by his genius, has become a science of immense extent. 
His first step had been to create for it a language ; his se- 
cond necessarily was to form for it a Method. But this second 
step, which was by much the most important, was also by far 
the most difficult. 
Organised existences have two bases of classification evident- 
ly given them by nature, — that of the Individual resulting from 
the union of all the organs of the body to produce some com- 
mon action ; and that of the Species, resulting from the con- 
nections which generation has established among individuals. 
More remote resemblances, however natural the relations on 
which they are founded may be, are always more or less de- 
pendant on ahstractities of the mind. 
In mineralogy, classifiers have sought in vain for some 
principle which might correspond in all respects with these 
primary bases. The mysterious power of crystallization is the 
only one which seems to have some resemblance with the genera- 
tive power ; it even determines the composition of a body, al- 
though it does so only within certain limits. Becent experi- 
ments have shewn, that there are substances whose crystallize 
