480. The changes wrought by the influence of these bodies are, however, only partial or fractional changes. Therefore partial or chemical diversities only originate, and with them other different bodies or degrees of such. The changes effected by the elements are, however, total changes, which bear not only reference to the carbon, but to all the constituent parts of the earth-element.
481. Total changes or different conditions of the earth-element are called Minerals, or earths.
482. The genesis of minerals, thus their collective character, as differently posited fixations of earth, determines the classes, orders, and genera.
483. The genus is the product of a genetic moment, and is therefore always a definite, chemical mixture, which alone consequently expresses the essential character. Hitherto there has been no definition of mineral genera.
484. Species of minerals are successive developments of the genetic moment, thus stöchiometric subdivisions of the genetic mixture, e. g. the different degrees of oxydation of nitrogen, in the oxyde, binoxyde gases and nitric acid. Hitherto it was not known what a mineral species might be; Physio-philosophy has been the first to introduce clearness to these conceptions.
485. A stöchiometric mixture in the earth-element is an individual.
486. Individuals only are the object of natural history, and thus neither water, air, nor fire. This also was not known previous to Physio-philosophy; it is, however, gradually acknowledged also by empirics.
487. The crystalline form is merely an external character for the species, and therefore the same nuclei may occur in the different orders.
488. Kinds or varieties are different conditions of cohesion. They are therefore not determined by the form of the secondary crystal, since the aberration of forms results only from a stoppage upon their part half way or from the quantitative energy of the polar radii or polar axes.
489. While æther, air, and water, as being general matters, do not belong to the mineral system, what have been called artificial salts must on the contrary be admitted therein, because they are no works of art. The chemist only brings bodies together which do not come together accidentally in nature. It is a true misapprehension of nature's products if those substances only, that adhere to the earth, are recognized as such; surely this definition is perfectly ridiculous.