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Art. XIV. ANALYSIS OF SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 



I. An Attempt to establish the First Principles of Chemistry by 

 Experiment. By Thomas Thomson, M.D. Regius Professor of 

 Chemistry in the University of Glasgow, F.R.S., Lond. and 

 Edin., &c. &c. In Two Volumes. London, 1825. 



The well-known author of this work regards the soul and body 

 of chemistry to consist in a knowledge of the relative weights of 

 the combining substances. This is to form a very narrow concep- 

 tion of the science. The true function of the chemical teacher is 

 announced in the following verse of the Roman poet : 



In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas 

 Corpora. 



It is the characteristic of chemical genius to reveal new ele- 

 mentary bodies, to form new compounds of the elements known 

 before, to discover new qualities and relations both among simple 

 and complex substances, and to arrange the manifold and marvel- 

 lous phenomena of corpuscular action, under a few general laws. 

 The philosopher of ardent and inventive mind, content to know 

 the general proportions, is unwilling to stop his career of dis- 

 covery in order to learn the minute fractional quantities ; nor will 

 he suffer his whole faculties to flutter round the oscillations of a 

 balance. Let none, however, hence imagine, that we desire to 

 disparage quantitative research ; we would only assign it a place of 

 due subordination below the qualitative, conversant with new 

 powers and forms of matter. To view, with Dr. Thomson, the 

 first principles of chemistry as consisting in an enumeration of 

 weights and measures, is to narrow and debase the science into an 

 affair of addition and subtraction. This arithmetical process is, 

 no doubt, a valuable accessory ; but can never compete either in 

 interest or utility with the knowledge of the chemical affinities, 

 from whose play, the countless diversities of composition and un- 

 ceasing successions of form in the material system, are derived. 

 These are the grand principles of chemical action, an acquaint- 

 ance with which must necessarily take precedence of the study of 

 quantity. 



It is deeply to be lamented that the latter kind of inquiry, 

 which, as exhibited in the work before us, can hardly be deemed 

 an intellectual operation, should have usurped, to too great a de- 

 gree, in some recent publications, the place of researches into the 

 powers that modify matter. Admirable specimens of this sublime 

 study are to be found in the statics of M. Berthollet, the Bake- 

 rian lectures and " Elements" of Sir H. Davy, and in many memoirs 



Vol. XX. I 



