306 DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY 



have been naturally preparatory to it, and such as 

 would have led others to it by the prosecution of 

 Wenzel's and Richter's researches, had they been 

 duly attended to. This is, in fact, an example, and 

 a most remarkable one, of the effect of that natural 

 propensity to generalize and simplify (noticed in 

 171.), which, if it occasionally leads to over-hasty 

 conclusions, limited or disproved by further experi- 

 ence, is yet the legitimate parent of many of our 

 most valuable and soundest results. Instances like 

 this, where great and, indeed, immeasurable steps 

 in our knowledge of nature are made at once, and 

 almost without intellectual effort, are well calculated 

 to raise our hopes of the future progress of science, 

 and, by pointing out the simplest and most obvious 

 combinations as those which are actually found to 

 be agreeable to the harmony of creation, to hold 

 out the cheering prospect of difficulties diminishing 

 as we advance, instead of thickening around us in 

 increasing complexity. 



(340.) A consequence of this immediate present- 

 ation of the law of definite proportions in its most 

 general form is, that its subordinate laws those 

 which limit its generality in particular cases, which 

 diminish the number of combinations abstractly 

 possible, and restrain the indiscriminate mixture of 

 elements, remain to be discovered. Some such 

 limitations have, in fact, been traced to a certain 

 extent, but by no means so far as the importance of 

 the subject requires; and we have here abundant 

 occupation for chemists for some time. 



(341.) The determination of the atomic weights 

 of the chemical elements, like that of other standard 



