14 CHEMICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION 



ticularly during the last century and a half, knowledge has been 

 substituted for ignorance, system for chaos, and a body of theory 

 has been established which enables the chemist to classify the 

 multitudinous facts of nature and so render them more or less 

 intelligible. The application of specialised portions of this 

 knowledge to manufacture provides mankind at the present day 

 with many of the conveniences of modern life which could never 

 have been dreamed of by our ancestors. 



The later portion of the book will contain an account of the 

 most important discoveries which not only find practical applica- 

 tions, but give entirely new views of the constitution of the world 

 in which we live. 



