Dec. 31, 1874] 



NA TURE 



165 



which Descaites was revealing ihc laws of molion, and 

 Harvey the circulation of the blood. But to the mass of 

 men this great change was all but imperceptible ; and it 

 was the energy, the profound conviction, the eloquence of 

 Bacon, which first called the attention of mankind as a 

 whole to the power and importance of physical research. 

 It was he who by his lofty faith in the results and vic- 

 tories of the new philosopliy nerved its followers to a zeal 

 and confidence equal to his own. It was he who above 

 all gave dignity to the slow and patient processes of in- 

 vestigation, of e.tperiment, of comparison, to the sacri- 

 ficing of hypothesis to fact, to the single aim after truth, 

 which was to be the law of modern science. But, in 

 England at least, Bacon stood — as we have said — before 

 his age. The beginnings of physical science were more 

 slow and timid there than in any country of Europe. 

 Only two discoveries of any real value came from English 

 research before the Restoration ; the first, Gilbert's dis- 

 covery of terrestrial magnetism in the close of Elizabeth's 

 reign ; the next, the great discovery of the circulation of 

 the blood, whicli was taught by Haivey in the reign of 

 James. But apart from these illustrious names, England 

 took little share in the scientific movement of the Con- 

 tinent ; and her whole energies seemed to be whirled into 

 the vorte.-c of theology and politics by the Civil War. 

 But the war had not reached its end when a little group 

 of students were to be seen in London, men ' inquisitive,' 

 says one of them, ' into natural philosophy and other parts 

 of human learning, and particularly of what hath been 

 called the New Philosophy .... which from the times 

 of Galileo at Florence, and Sir Francis Bacon (Lord 

 Verulam) in England, hath been much cultivated in Italy, 

 France, Germany, and other parts abroad, as well as with 

 us in England.' The stnle of the time indeed aided in 

 directing the minds of men to natural inquiries. ' To 

 have been always tossing about some theological ques- 

 tion,' says the first historian of the Royal Society, Bishop 

 Sprat, ' would have been to have made that their private 

 diversion, the excess of which tiiey disliked in the public. 

 To have been eterna'ly musing on civil business and the 

 distresses of the countiy was too melancholy a reflection. 

 It was nature alone which coukl pleasantly entertain them 

 in that estate.' Foremost in the group stood Doctors 

 Wallis and Wilkins, whose removal to Oxford, which had 

 just been reorganised by the Puritan Visitors, divided the 

 I.ttle company into two societies. The Ox'ord society, 

 which was the more important of the two, held its meet- 

 ings at the lodgings of Dr. Wilkins, who had become 

 Warden of Wadham College, and ad^ed to the names of 

 iis members that of the eminent mathematician, Dr. 

 Ward, and that of the first of English economists. Sir 

 William Petty. ' Our business,' Wallis tells us, ' was 

 (precluding matters of theology and State afTairs) to dis- 

 course and consider of philosophic.d inquiries and such 

 as related thereunto, as Phytick, Anatomy, Geomeiry, 

 Astronomy, Navigation, Statics, Magnetics, Chymicks, 

 Mechanicks, and Natural Experiments : with the state of 

 these studits, as then culdvated at home and abroad. 

 We then discoursed of the circulation of the blood, the 

 valves in the vena: /actcir, the lymphatic vessels, the 

 Copernican hypothesis, the nature of comets and new 

 stars, the satellites of Jupiter, the oval shape of Saturn, 

 the spots in the sun and its turning on its own axis, the 

 inequalities and selenography of the moon, the several 

 phases of Venus and IVlercury, the improvement of tele- 

 scopes, the grinding of glasses for that purpose, the 

 weight of air, the possibility or impossibility of vacuities, 

 and nature's abhorrence thereof, the Torricellian experi- 

 ment in quicksilver, the descent of heavy bodies and the 

 degree oi acceleration therein, and divers other things of 

 like nature.' 



'• The other little company of inquirers, who remained 

 in London, was at last broken up by the troubles of the 

 Second Protectorate ; but it was revived at the Restora- 



tion by the return to London of the more eminent mem- 

 bers of the Oxford group. Science suddenly became the 

 fashion of the day. Charles was himself a fair chemist 

 and took a keen interest in the problems of navigation. 

 The Duke of Buckingham varied his freaks of rhyming, 

 drinking, and fiddling, by fits of devotion to his labora- 

 tory. Poets like Denhain and Cowley, courtiers like Sir 

 Robert Murray and Sir Kenelm Digby, joined the scien- 

 tific company to which in token of his sympathy with it 

 the king gave the title of ' The Royal Society.'" 



The maps, and without maps no history ought to be 

 tolerated, will be found greatly useful. Should Mr. 

 Green utilise the large amount of material he must have 

 collected for the purpose of writing a similar history on a 

 much larger scale, no doubt he will say something about 

 the physical environment of the English people, — those 

 external conditions which have had their own share in 

 shaping the history and character of our nation. His 

 present work ought to become the school history of 

 Eni'land. 



r- EH LING'S NEW CHEMICAL DICTIONARY 



Ah-!ii's Handwbricrbtich der Cheniic. Uiiter Mitwirkuiig 



von Bunsen, Fiiti}^, E'resmiiis, Ss-x. Bearbeitet und 



redigirt von Dr. Hermann v. Fehling, Professor der 



Chemie in Stuttgart. Erster Band. (Braunschweig : 



Druck und Verlag von Friedrich Vieweg und Sohn, 



'074.) 



n EN years have passed since the completion of the 



-L great work of Liebig, Poggendorff, and Wohler, 



the " Handworterbuch der Reinen und Angewandteu 



Chemie." These years have witnessed great changes in 



our c'aemical knowledge ; not only have theories which 



in the year 1864 occupied but an inferior place in the 



general system of chemistry now come to the front, but 



also a vast array of new facts demands a place in the 



system, which must therefore be extended so as to include 



them all. 



The book which ten' years ago was looked upon by all 

 as a standard authority has now necessarily become 

 somewhat antiquated, and .the desire for a new edition 

 has naturally arisen in the minds of the German chemists. 

 The first fruits of this desire we have now in the goodly 

 volume of 1,200 pages which lies before us. 



As in most of the productions of the German mind, so 

 in this, there is no lack of thoroughness, nor of breadth 

 of view and treatment of tHfe subject. The names of the 

 contributors of the various articles are alone sufficient to 

 inspire trust in what they have to tell us. A few of that 

 old band of chemists who made the first Handw'orter- 

 biicli famous still lend their aid to the success of the pre- 

 sent volume ; while among the younger men are Fittig, 

 Kekule, Hofmann, Victor Meyer, Tollens, Zincke, and 

 others, who have already made for themselves a name in 

 science. 



Whether this be the proper time for the publication of 

 a large and all-embracing treatise on chemistry is per- 

 haps a question which admits of more than one answer. 

 Chemical theories at present seem to be nearing that 

 stage at which they are to be embraced within the larger 

 theories of mechanical science. If this be true, the inter- 

 pretation to be put upon chemical facts will in some years 

 be greatly modified, and hence the publication of some- 

 what elaborate treatises will be demanded. In such a 



