Manchester Memoirs, Vol. xlvii. (1903), No. 11. 5 



is more than doubtful. His points of force were too 

 abstract a conception to admit of direct application in the 

 solution of real problems. Dalton certainly owed nothing 

 to Boscovich, and would just as surely have developed his 

 theory, had the brilliant Dalmatian never written a line. 



To Boyle and Newton the atomic hypothesis was a 

 question of natural philosophy alone ; for, in their day, 

 chemistry, as a quantitative science, had hardly begun to 

 exist. Attempts were soon made, however, to give it 

 chemical application, and the first of these which I have 

 been able to find was due to Emanuel Swedenborg. 

 This philosopher, whose reputation as a man of science 

 has been overshadowed by his fame as a seer and 

 theologian, published in 1 721 a pamphlet upon chemistry, 

 which is now more easily accessible in an English transla- 

 tion of relatively recent date.* It consists of chapters 

 from a larger unpublished work, and really amounts to 

 nothing more than a sort of atomic geometry. From 

 geometric groupings of small, concrete atoms, the proper- 

 ties of different substances are deduced, but in a way 

 which is more curious than instructive. Between the 

 theory and the facts there is no obvious relation. The 

 book was absolutely without influence upon chemical 

 thought or discovery, and therefore it has escaped general 

 notice. It is the prototype of a class of speculative 

 treatises, considerable in number, some of them recent, 

 and all of them futile. They represent efforts which were 

 premature, and for which the fundamental support of 

 experimental knowledge was lacking. 



In 1775, Dr. Bryan Higgins, of London, published the 

 prospectus of a course of lectures upon chemistry, in 



*'*Some specimens of a work on the Principles of Chemistry with 

 other treatises." London, 1847. Originally published at Amsterdam, in 

 Latin. 



