CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 227 



of as much success as, in the present condition of the human 

 mind, we have any right to expect. 



The great value of chemical science is deemed to consist in 

 its facility and power of analysis ; but in this respect it seems to 

 have advanced but little farther, excepting in changing the 

 terms, than the ancient doctrine that all matter was resolvable 

 into four elements earth, air, fire, and water. The composi 

 tion of albumen, fibrin, caseine, and gluten, and of each of them, 

 is represented, by chemical analysis, as precisely the same in the 

 nature and quantity of their original elements ; as, for example, 

 they consist of carbon, 48 ; hydrogen, 36 ; nitrogen, 6 ; oxygen, 

 15 ; but to our senses, and in their uses, they are obviously 

 altogether different. Now, chemistry explains the difficulty, if 

 explanation it can be called, by stating that the difference in 

 these substances arises from a different mechanical arrangement 

 of the atoms or particles of which they are composed ; but until 

 chemistry can explain how this arrangement differs in the respec 

 tive cases until it can take the original elements, and compound 

 or arrange them at its pleasure, so as to produce their different 

 forms or substances the explanation is certainly very far from 

 complete. It is, indeed, not certain that even these four great 

 principles the existence of which is so well established and 

 defined are themselves ultimate elements ; but admitting the 

 fact, their precise nature is wholly unexplained, in the present 

 state of human knowledge. Newton, in revealing the operation 

 of a principle of gravitation, and in explaining its wonderful 

 laws, has yet thrown no light upon the nature of the force 

 itself ; and, in dissecting the beautiful composition of light into 

 its seven primary elements, has yet not advanced one hair s 

 breadth in defining what light itself is. I know it is now the 

 habit to believe that every thing in nature may be resolved into 

 chemical or electrical agency, the laws of which are determined 

 and explicable, and to discard all notions of what is termed the 

 vital agency. I cannot myself doubt that every thing in nature 

 is governed by determinate and general laws ; laws, in respect to 

 whose existence and operation science has already made very 

 great advances, and, for aught that can be foreseen, may pres 

 ently completely understand them ; but as yet the goal is far 

 from being reached ; and human reason, with all its illumination, 



