BET-\VEEN THE ATOMIC WEIGHTS. 



255 



• As tlie series of compounds give a greater scope for investigating the relations of 

 properties than is presented by those of the elements, yve may expect that these rela- 

 tions will be first discovered in the former, and to my conceptions Chemistry will then 

 have become a perfect science, when all substances have been classed in series of hom- 

 ologues, and when we can make a table which shall contain, not only eveiy known 

 substance, but also every possible one, and when by means of a few general formulas 

 we shall be able to express all the properties of matter, so that when the series of a 

 substance and its place in its series are given, we shall be able to calculate, nay, pre- 

 dict, its properties with absolute certainty ; and when our chemical treatises shall have 

 been reduced to tables of homologues, and our laws comprised in a few algebraic 

 formulae, then the dreams of the ancient alchemist vnll be realized, for the problem of 

 the transmutation of the elements will have been theoretically, if not practically, 

 solved. 



