HISTORY OF THE ATOMIC THEORY. 1 17 



CHAPTER VI. 



OPINIONS DURING THB TRANSITION FROM ALCHEMY 

 TO CHEMISTRY. 



The ages so rapidly passed over comprehend two thousand 

 years. The attainment in chemical science has been as yet 

 small. All the theories have been abstract ; they have been 

 efforts of the mind to comprehend matter, with a very 

 meagre, if any, classification of phenomena. We might ask 

 ourselves if this was caused by the scarceness of facts, or by 

 the want of a mind to perceive them. As to scarceness of 

 information this may be doubted, numerous truly chemical 

 arts had been from early ages in use ; many had fallen into 

 disuse. The observers that now come to the science are not 

 so much characterized by the multitude of their discoveries, as 

 by the minuteness of their observations, and the penetrating 

 nature of their reasonings. The progress of mankind has often 

 been compared with the progress of individuals, and the 

 analogy serves here to point out a cause. In the history of 

 every mind, especially of the mind of the student, there are 

 seasons where facts are collected and books read with diligence, 

 theories formed in great numbers, reasonings adopted and 

 thrown aside ; opinions are heaped up, but no distinct opinion 

 is formed, and a vague stare into the difficulties before it is 

 the only result of the labour, for knowledge it can scarcely be 

 called, where nothing is well arranged, and nothing is actually 

 known. The imagination then takes the place of the helpless 

 reason. A poetical mind may find in this state a field for its 

 highest powers, a weaker mind will seek explanations more 

 or less mystical, and a still weaker mind will be contented 

 with the merely mysterious. But a vigorous mind, in which 

 reasoning and observation predominate, is found gradually to 



