120 Analysis of Scientific Books. 



able than its liberality. The busy fermentation of its spirits is 

 strikingly manifested in the prodigious multitude of chemical 

 journals and compilations, which annually appear. These indi- 

 cate a corresponding multitude of scientific readers. Besides 

 the number of general students, who, from the cloisters of clas 

 sical literature, and of geometry, have been alhired to enter the 

 temple of the modern Hermes, by the singularity, splendour, 

 and importance of the trophies which it displays ; an immense 

 crowd of votaries have been summoned from the manufacturing 

 classes of society. Chemistry has thus created a new popula- 

 tion of practical philosophers, who reason more profoundly and 

 accurately than the old masters of Grecian wisdom. Every me- 

 tallurgist, bleacher, dyer, calico-printer, vitriol or soda manu- 

 facturer, ^c, who aims at precision and perfection in his pro- 

 cesses, becomes a student of chemical science, and follows, with 

 a lively interest, every discovery which may bear, in any way, 

 on his peculiar art. 



While chemistry invites the scholar to the laboratory of na- 

 ture, by the wonders which she is ready to reveal, and the 

 manufacturer by the hope of applying to pecuniary advantage 

 the secrets thus acquired, there is no formidable obstacle placed 

 at the entrance-gate. The candidate of mechanical science must, 

 on the other hand, plod first of all through the fatiguing and 

 intricate avenues of mathematics, before he can become a suc- 

 cessful student. He derives but a few general principles from 

 observation and experiment ; and from these he must obtain, by 

 mathematical procedure, an infinite number of deductions. The 

 chemist can but rarely venture to employ the rigid methods of 

 geometrical research. His general facts are not numerous ; 

 and are modified by a thousand peculiarities which experiment 

 alone can ascertain. Mechanical science considers the most 

 general qualities and actions of bodies ; chemical science, the 

 differential and specific. The former launches out at once into 

 the wide ocean of research ; and, guided by her quadrant and 

 compass, discovers new lands. The latter steers along a strange 

 and ever-varying shore, with the plumb-line in her hand, and 

 examines at every turn, the structure of the coast and the nature 

 of its productions. A few spirits, impatient of this servile, 

 though sure navigation, have stood venturously out to sea, trust- 

 ing to their charts and instruments, but after a vague and 

 perilous voyage have either returned into soundings, fatigued 

 and disappointed, or have perished in the vortex of hypothesis. 



If we estimate the proportion of chemical students, in a 

 country, from the number and variety of its chemical publica- 

 tions. Great Britain would seem entitled to high pre-eminence. 

 We possess five journals devoted in a great measure to chemis- 

 try, besides the Transactions of the different scientific societies 

 in which chemistry and its subordinate studies occupy a pro- 



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