Mr Johnston's i^isit to Ber%eliuS. 201 



Of Berzelius as a chemical philosopher, there is but one 

 opinion. He unites the three great requisites, patient in- 

 dustry, clear thinking, and dextrous manipulation; and the 

 scientific journals of the last twenty years, contain ample 

 proofs of the able manner in which they have been exercised. 

 In regard to some of his peculiar views, there is a difference 

 of opinion among chemists, but almost all that makes them 

 peculiar may be traced to his excessive caution, — a fault which, 

 in a science depending upon experiment, though it sometimes 

 retards the acknowledgment of a true theory, will rarely lead 

 to error. When he began his labours at Upsala, the whole 

 science was a mass of crude theories soldered together, when- 

 ever a flaw appeared, by some new fancy more ingenious than 

 the rest. These he found to be the greatest obstacles in his 

 way, and hence probably it is that he has all his life long set 

 himself against the spirit of theorizing, which, usurping the 

 place of true philosophy, had built hypotheses upon hypotheses, 

 and called the result a science. Even now he perhaps under- 

 values something too much a merely theoretical paper ; but 

 this propensity is attended by one advantage, that when Ber- 

 zelius adopts such a notion, it is certain there are very good 

 grounds for it indeed. 



In the North of Europe he is better known than in Britain, 

 his name standing above that of every other chemist, and his 

 authority on all subjects connected with chemistry having little 

 less than the force of a law. How high he ranks in Germany, 

 in particular, may be inferred from the fact that, in a late His^ 

 tory of the Devil^ of which so njany are published in that 

 country, one of the main inducements his Satanic majesty is 

 represented as holding out to a convert still half- doubtful of sell- 

 ing himself, is, that he will make him a Berzelius. The cause 

 of this high respect is probably to be found in their wider ac- 

 quaintance with his works, all his papers and works being pub- 

 lished in German, either directly by himself or through the 

 medium of others. It is a pity that the professedly chemical 

 journals in this country should pay so little attention to those 

 pubhshed in Germany. The editors of these journals are inde- 

 fatigable ; they permit nothing to escape them. 



But besides his distinction abroad and among men of science 



