324 AiKi/i/sis of ScieiUiJic Books. 



It will hardly be supposed that we mean to question the im- 

 portance of algebra in a general sense; no one can be more 

 conscious than ourselves, how indispensably necessary it is to 

 have not merely a slight, but a full and perfect knowledge of 

 that science in a great variety of complicated and abstruse in- 

 vestigations ; it is only in cases like the present, where no 

 dignus vindice nodus exists, that we protest against its introduc- 

 tion, for even such a simple formula as the preceding tends to 

 perplex a numerous class of readers, and, as to them at least, to 

 obscure rather than illustrate. Plain facts should be stated in 

 plain terms ; to introduce extraordinary means for accomplishing 

 ordinary ends, is like Hogarth's philosopher using complicated 

 machinery to draw a cork. We would say therefore to the ma- 

 thematical chemist, enjoy the advantage which your algebra 

 gives you in your closet, avail yourself of all its powers to ab- 

 breviate your calculations and elucidate your theoretical specu- 

 lations, but when you detail them to the general mind, let them 

 be clothed in the plainest garb your genius can invest them with ; 

 and in all cases, unless it be absolutely necessary, instead of 

 saying let .r be this or that, we say let x alone. 



We perfectly agree with Dr. Thomson in the well-merited eu- 

 logy he has pronounced on Dr. Prout for the essay alluded to, 

 (Annals of Philosophij ,xv\. 167); but when he asserts that "mere 

 experimenters may relinquish the field, for there is not a great 

 deal more which they can do," we consider him as endeavouring 

 with the whole weight of his authority, whatever it may be 

 worth, fatally and effectually to oppose the progress of chemical 

 science. If by the mere experimenter he mean a foolish fellow, 

 who swelters at the furnace, and half suffocates himself with tbe 

 fumes from his sand bath without any determinate object in his 

 labours, or with views as chimerical as the philosopher of La- 

 puta who tried to make deal boards out of saw-dust, well and 

 good! but if he mean, as he obviously does, that a knowledge of 

 algebra and the mathematics is essentially necessary to the che- 

 mist, we deny the assertion. An ingenious and skilful opera- 

 tor thoroughly conversant in chemical philosophy, but with 

 merely a competent knowledge of common arithmetic, is as 

 likely to devise and execute important experiments as the best 

 algebraist that ever combined the knowledge of the two sciences. 

 The whole of Dr. Black's theory of latent heat is developed in 

 his lectures edited by Dr. Robison, without the introduction of 

 a single algebraical formula in the text ; whence it is clear that 

 Black did not think algebra necessary to explain his views, 

 even on so difficult a subject. Would" Dr. Thomson, who sets 

 himself up as the autocrat of chemistry, have presumed to have 

 ordered him to .elinquish the field? But it is time to turn to 

 the volume that lies open before us, and we do so with pleasure. 



" The subject of the work now offered to the public," says 



