626 REPORT — 1887. 



set up in quite recent times. The labours of Dalton, conducted on quantitative 

 lines, were performed in this city of Manchester in the early part of this century. 

 At the same time Berzelius was engaged in analysing the most important inorganic 

 compounds and establishing the fact, not previously recognised, strange as it may 

 now appear, that every well-defined substance has a definite chemical composition. 

 But going still further back, we come to the alchemists. Now alchemy, if it has 

 any logical basis at all, is founded on quantitative notions as regards matter. All 

 metals, the alchemists said, consist of sulphur, salt, and mercury (these terms signify- 

 ing not so much elements in the modern sense as qualities) in various proportions ; 

 hence their convertibility. Take copper, remove from it a certain proportion of 

 its sulphurous constituent, and add more of the mercurial, and you have silver ; 

 repeat the process with silver, and gold results. At the time of which I speak, 

 though much important analytical work had been done by Berzelius, Rose, and 

 others in inorganic chemistry, though the veteran Chevreul had led the way in 

 placing organic chemistry on a quantitative basis, and the composition of the most 

 important organic compounds — thanks to the labours of Liebig and his method of 

 organic analysis — had been ascertained, still quantitative determinations were not 

 considered of such paramount importance as at present. In fact, scientific thought 

 did not run in that direction, but satisfied itself, for the most part, with the study 

 of qualitative reactions. It was still possible to see memoirs by eminent chemists 

 containing not a single quantitative determination. Strange as it may seem, two 

 able chemists, Boettger and Schoenbein, were living until quite recently who worked 

 and obtained valuable results without resorting to the balance, the instrument 

 which of all others seems the most indispensable to the chemist of to-day. The 

 balance was indeed universally employed in my younger days, but no other instru- 

 ment, properly so called, was ever seen in the laboratory. The spectroscope was not 

 yet invented, the polariacope had not come into use ; volumetric analysis was still 

 in its infancy. Even the thermometer was but seldom used. What a different 

 picture does the laboratory of the present day present, with its instruments of pre- 

 cision and its various appUances for efiecting quautitative determinations of all 

 kinds ! 



AVhether the universal prevalence of and exclusive attention to quantitative 

 methods in chemistry has been an unmixed good may be doubted. Who has not 

 run with a weary eye over the long array of figures, the never-ending tables of 

 which some modern memoirs seem to consist, and not longed for some mere de- 

 scription — were it only regarding trivial matters — to relieve the monotony and fix the 

 subject treated of on the memory ? That quantitative determinations given in quite 

 precise terms may occasionally be entirely futile may be seen on referring to tlie 

 history of alchemy. One of the later alchemists professes to have converted 5,400 

 parts by w-eight of copper into 6,552 parts of silver by the action of 1 part of a 

 metal-improving substance (philosopher's stone). ^ Here we see the quantitative 

 method applied to a purely chimerical process, elaborated from the depths of the 

 experimenter's inner consciousness, and of no value w^iatever. Much of what is at 

 the present day carefully worked out and presented to the world in numerical form 

 may, like this statement of the alchemist, pass away and be forgotten. This may 

 possibly be the case with the numerous carefully made analyses of water which we 

 now meet witli, and which we would gladly exchange for a few decided qualitative 

 tests of its hygienic properties. In the case of air and water it is not the minuteness 

 of the noxious matter which causes doubts to arise, but the absence of any decided 

 and luidoubted chemical characteristics of the impurities present. It is probable 

 that a refined sense of taste, uncorrupted by the luxurious indulgences which civili- 

 sation has introduced, would be able to detect difi'erences in drinking water which 

 might escape the attention of the most consummate analyst. 



Whatever objections may, however, be entertained to the application of 

 quantitative methods in natural science, to the exclusion of others, it is certain that 

 important results have flowed from their adoption, insomuch that we seem to have 

 arrived at the conclusion that the expression of quantitative results is the be-all 



• Kopp, Die Aloheviie. 



