26 
The danger of re-naturalizing, soas not 
to know them again, increasesin propor- 
tion to the fresh knowledge and inves- 
tigations that their own proper forces 
will call for. 
Chemistry may be considered as 
the science of fire, and its objects are 
directed to the phenomena of combus- 
tion. The reciprocal affinity between 
comburants, or bodies burning, and 
combustibles, predominates over all 
other affiaities under the most common 
influences, such as those of the forces 
that may be called simple, in opposition 
to those of life. It is this which gives 
rise, to the combinations which the 
chemist decomposes and reproduces 
while acting under those influences, 
so as to modify them, in a manner, 
according to his will. It is thus that 
all the phenomena of combustion, the 
analysis of the bodies which it pro- 
duces, the alliances, for the most part 
binary, which those bodies and their 
elements contract; these have, hither- 
to, interested the numerous labours 
of modern chemistry, and to them it 
almost owes, exclusively, the many 
zealous cares and attentions that are 
now paid to it. 
But that affinity, that occult power, 
which inclines the elements of bodies 
to approach and unite, is not only 
subject to the forces here noted, but 
we see it, in living bodies, obedient to 
particular laws, comply with fresh con- 
ditions, and give rise to complex phe- 
nomena, which are not immediatcly 
derivable from simple forces. It is, 
doubtless, owing to this, that organic 
chemistry has been so long in taking 
its rise, and so slow in its progress. 
Even now, it is in want of those pro- 
lific principles which create regular 
effects, and make them concur to a 
commonend. In the classification of 
organic substances, we see how little 
has been collected of all that is re- 
guired, and this may be a criterion to 
show how imperfect are our ideas as 
to their nature and-relations. M. 
Chevreul touches on ‘the principles 
conformably to which these relations 
ought to be established; and as to 
what, in chemistry, should constitute 
genus and species. ‘the study of 
these he promises to promote and sim- 
plify in any other work. 
—=b— 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
N intelligent friend from Van 
Diemen’s Land, a settler of some 
years’ standing, and now on his passage 
On Colonization and the Australian Colonies. 
homewards, lately spent along evening 
with me, with the kind intention of 
imparting the various information he 
had acquired by a long residence in 
those interesting colonies, New South 
Wales and Van Diemen’s island. A 
part of this [ noted down at the time, 
for the substance of which, together 
with a few reflections on the general 
principles of colonization, as one of 
your oldest correspondents, 1 request 
a place in the Monthly Magazine, 
which, I understand, is generally read 
in the Australian, as well as in all 
other British settlements. 
No plan of public policy is more ap- 
propriate, more advantageous, or more 
honourable, to a great and opulent 
commercial nation, than the export of 
its surplus of personel, (to affect a 
fashionable term,) in order to colonize 
unpeopled countries, which, it shall 
have been previously ascertained, are 
worthy: of the outlay, and calculated 
to support an industrious and im- 
proving population. The grand na- 
tional motives for this adventure are 
twofold ; specifically, the fairly, and 
beneficially to all parties, ridding of 
that surplus which cannot fail to super- 
vene, in an ancient and thriving state, 
and to become alternately burdensome 
and dangerous, from the impossibility 
of procuring employment for the 
whole, at adequate wages of labour,— 
and, the rational view of providing 
colonies forthe extension of commerce 
and manufactures in the mother coun- 
try, and for securing of faithful allies 
of the same blood and national habits. 
The honour of spreading over the face 
of the earth the national language and 
fame, with the inestimable benefits of 
civilization, is no mean or trifling 
incentive. 
But the system of modern coloniza- 
tion has been hitherto vicious in prin- 
ciple, and invariably productive, in the 
ultimate, of dissention and blood be- 
tween the parent’state and its colonies. 
It has been the policy of nations to de- 
prive their colonists of the general na- 
tional rights, as though they had been 
forfeited by a change of country ; to 
restrict them in their commerce with 
other nations, to interfere in their 
internal jurisdiction,: and, finally, to 
claim an endless dominion over them. 
Such was the conduct of the govern- 
ment of this country towards our Ame- 
rican colonies, which naturally pro- 
duced, in stateS ripe for the event, a 
success{y] revolution. A similar policy 
has ever prevailed in Spain and Por- 
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