S4 Essays on Chemical Philosophj. 



the consideration of tliis word, not as a descriptive term of effects, 

 but as a name for a distinct power of causaiion, five pages are 

 devoted for one that is given to attraction, as the grand and 

 universal power of Nature, of whose effects Newton traced with 

 an unerring liand the grand and extensive outhnes. 



The same cause will ahvavs produce the s une effects, the cir- 

 cumstances being tlie same. Now these powers, electricity, ca- 

 loric, and light, are invariably treated as powers principally con- 

 cerned in the attractions which take place among the particles 

 of matter, or chemical attraction. How then are they said to 

 produce effects the very reverse of attraction ? In fact, this con- 

 fusion has originated in the arbitrary and undefined application 

 of the term altraclinn: it is one cause which produces different 

 effects, either (as will hereafter be proved in detail) jro7n d'lf- 

 fertnce of circumstances, or in the degree of the same power-*' 

 from these causes arises its two-fold action, of carrying bodies 

 and the particles of bodies in one direction, and dravviiig them 

 in another. 



Attraction binds matter together, and the same power (I 

 contend) carries it from one point to another. The latter is the 

 repulsion of chemists, but the repulsive effects oil>i^\.nxe', and 

 these varied modifications of the same power serve but to exhibit 

 so many instances of the superior and all-pervading omnipotent 

 influence of that power. Artificial and arbitrary distinctions 

 liave made Science and Nature two very different things. Che- 

 mistry has been defined as " the science which treats of the in- 

 sensible motions of matter," or say " of the minute and intri- 

 cate changes of Nature." Now, if the minute and intricate 

 changes of Nature are connected with her sublime and extended 

 movements, — if minute atoms and celestial masses are moved by 

 the same power, regulated by the same lavvs, aiid merely modified 

 by circumstances^ — then this definition is defective, and it only 

 applies partially. If then it be allowed that the object of chemistry 

 is to examine the one, and that not only the most difficult, but 

 which must contain the first principles of the other, that other 

 and subsequent part of natural science is a continuation of the 

 first, and they ought to be considered as parts of one whole. 

 Cliemical philosophy^'' I would therefore define to be that science 

 which investigate? the movements and changes of Nature, and 

 endeavours to ascertain the laws and principles by which these 

 effects are produced. This is its proper object — it is the golderi 

 key by which we unlock the secrets of Nature, and are enabled 

 to discover the laws of that power by which Nature produces all 

 her operations. 



* Definitions of its application to practical chemistry and astronomy 

 will be given liereafter. 



Distiuctious 



