' CHEMISTRY LECTURE I. 



(i.) MR. PRESIDENT and GENTLEMEN, It has been, I am well 

 aware, the traditional policy of this College, in its character of a 

 learned body, to foster the cultivation of natural science for its own 

 sake, irrespective of any immediate advantage accruing to medical 

 practice, and regardless even of the ultimate advantage which, 

 sooner or later, must accrue from every addition to our knowledge 

 of the phenomena of life. I therefore make no apology, Sir, for 

 directing your attention to topics of which the present interest, at 

 any rate, is more scientific than practical, relying upon the favour 

 ever extended to pure science within these walls relying still 

 more confidently upon the prospective ability of science to repay 

 your favour many fold. 



I feel, however, that I ought to apologise for venturing to dis- 

 cuss in this presence some of the more rudimentary principles of 

 chemical philosophy ; but the circumstance that these principles, 

 despite their rudimentary character, are yet of very recent intro- 

 duction must furnish my excuse. Indeed, it is only within the last 

 fifteen years or so that chemical facts have been in any large mea- 

 sure subordinated to chemical principles, and only within a very 

 few years past that these principles have been consistently de- 

 veloped and generally acknowledged. But the result of this 

 development and recognition is already apparent: for we find 

 that, notwithstanding the continuous accumulation of recorded 

 experiment, and the continuous discovery of new and complex 

 bodies with a rapidity at which even the most impassive are 

 amazed, chemistry is daily becoming less and less a science of 

 detail, more and more a science of generality, to such an extent 

 indeed, that, in my opinion, a student beginning the study of 

 chemistry now, with a view to make himself acquainted with the 

 knowledge of his own day, has a far less difficult task before him 

 than had his predecessor of twenty years ago, despite the then 

 limited range of chemical inquiry. To some extent, therefore, I 

 am forced, especially in this introductory lecture, to devote .a con- 

 siderable proportion of my allotted time to an enunciation of 

 certain general truths of more or less recent establishment. But, 

 in order that we may set out from the same standpoint, I must 



