422. Some of the same observations apply to Mr Kirwan. His Geological Essays have also for their object to explain the first origin of things; and to say that he has not succeeded, in an attempt where no man ever can succeed, implies no reproach on the execution of his work, whatever it may do on the design. We have indeed no criterion by which the execution of it can be estimated: what would in any other place be a blemish, may be here deserving of praise; and if the work is full of confusion and perplexity, these are qualities inherent in the subject which it is intended to describe. It were, no doubt, to be wished, that after emerging into the regions of day, Mr Kirwan had been as successful in copying the beauty and simplicity of nature, as in representing the disorder and inconsistency of the chaotic mass. But his cosmology is without unity in its principles, or consistency in its parts; the causes introduced, are, for the most part, such as will account for one set of appearances just as well as for another; or, if any of them is likely to prove inadequate to the effect ascribed to it, a new and arbitrary hypothesis is always ready to come to its assistance. The information given is seldom exact: a multitude of facts brought together, without the order and discussion essential to precise knowledge; and an infinity of quotations, amassed without criticism or comparison, afford proofs of extensive reading, but of the most hasty and superficial inquiry. Thus we have seen passages from ULLOA and FRISI, produced in support of opinions, which, when fairly stated, they had the most direct tendency to overthrow. 423. In one respect, the geological writings of Kirwan are far inferior to De Luc's: They are evidently the productions of a man who has not seen nature with his own eyes; who has studied mineralogy in cabinets, or in books only; but who has seldom beheld fossils in their native place. With the balance in his hand, and the external characters of WERNER in his view, he has examined minerals with diligence, and has discovered many of those marks which serve to ascertain their places, in a system of artificial arrangement. But to _reason_ and to _arrange_ are very different occupations of the mind; and a man may deserve praise as a mineralogist, who is but ill qualified for the researches of geology.