Notices respecting ISfeiv Boohs. 1 ^3 



observer mav arrange ihem in classes, genera, and species, 

 whence results a general theory. On the accuracy of" such 

 arrangements depends all the merit of the respective theories 

 of natural pha^nomena which have hitherto amused man- 

 kind. To hegin the study of chemistry, which is a science 

 of experience and ohservation, by applying any artificial 

 theory or system to explain natural phcenomena, is surely to 

 contemplate nature under the veil of art. By such means, 

 it is true, a system may be consolidated, hut our knowledge 

 of the ceconomy of nature will never advance one step 

 nearer truth. The second proposition is remarkable for a 

 copiousness of not the most appropriate terms. " To show 

 the connections existing between these phenomena and their 

 reciprocal influence upon each other, we must consider this 

 philosophy as comprising the whole of the important disco- 

 veries made by chemistry," The " connections" and "re- 

 ciprocal influence" of phaenomena are not unfrcqucntly 

 identical terms, and even the analogies of chemical hodiea 

 are often discovered or known only by their reciprocal in- 

 fluence on each other. 



M. Fourcroy, after taking a poetical view of the pro- 

 gressive mutations of all bodies, reduces the objects of his 

 consideration to eight articles, " which really constitate the 

 first principles or elementary basis of chemistry." They 

 are as follow: " 1st, Definition of chemistry; 2dly, Exa- 

 mination of its general means; sdly, Chemical nature of 

 bodies; 4thly. Attraction of aggregation; 5thly, Attrac- 

 tion of composition; 6lhly, Chemical operations; 7thlv, 

 Classification of natural bodies; and bthly, Chemical phae- 

 nomena of nature, and their classification." These articles 

 are again divided and subdivided with tedious minuteness, 

 and interlarded with fanciful or erroneous distinctions, which 

 may bewilder, but certainly cannot assist young students of 

 chemical science. For instance, although it is acknow- 

 ledged that '* analysis is a division very diflerent from that 

 performed by mechanical instruments ;" the author makes 

 a subsection of " mechanical analysis (a solecism), spon- 

 taneous analysis (more properly decomposition), analysis b\- 

 fire, and by rc-agenls." Again we have the division of 



" immediale 



