PRESIDENTS ADDRESS—SECTION B. 51 
To him, however, we undoubtedly owe a considerable debt. 
He and his followers gave the deathblow to alchemy, which died, 
however, very hard. He took chemistry out of the hands of the 
alchemists, and placed it in the hands of physicians and apothe- 
caries, a step which enriched the science to an extraordinary 
degree. 
The aim of the science is still far from being the present one, 
but its outlook is considerably broader, and no longer directed 
towards an unattainable object. The search for healing medi- 
cines was in itself a noble aim, and in its pursuit a multitude of 
new compounds were prepared and studied. 
With regard to the philosophical side of the science, the 
alchemistic theory as to the constitution of matter prevailed un- 
changed, except that another element, salt, was added to sul- 
phur and mercury, mercury being the volatile principle, sulphur 
the combustible, and salt the fixed principle. Paracelsus re- 
garded chemistry as one of the four pillars of medicine, the 
others being Philosophy, Astronomy, and Virtue. 
BOYLE AND MODERN METHODS. 
Up to this time it will be seen that the science of chemistry, 
as we understand it now, had no existence. 
Such aims as it from time to time possessed were either false 
and illusory, or futile. It possessed: no laws, and the only 
theories extant were such as had no experimental basis, and were 
entirely without proof. It is to the Irishman Boyle (1627- 
1691) that we owe the introduction of the scientific method 
of experiment and induction from experiment which in the hands 
of later chemists has advanced the science with such astonishing 
rapidity and sureness. 
Boyle, in his own words, regarded the chemist not as a physi- 
cian, nor an alchemist, but as a philosopher. 
The chemist’s aim is not to make drugs or gold, but to investi- 
gate Nature, to experiment, and to build up a philosophical 
system upon the facts of experiment. Nature is to be investi- 
gated by studying the composition of matter, by splitting it up, 
and by reconstructing it out of its elements. 
This is, in fact, the definition of chemistry you will find in 
every text-book to-day. 
It is true that Boyle had not the same idea of an element that 
we have, but he showed conclusively that the prevailing notions 
concerning the elements were untenable. Boyle advanced no 
new theory concerning the constitution of matter, but he in- 
dicated the road for future chemists to work on with certainty, 
and travelled himself a considerable distance along it. 
He discovered and proved the existence of several of the 
fundamental laws governing matter. He was the first to observe 
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