THE 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH, and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOUKNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[FIFTH SERIES.] 



JANUARY 1876. 



On the First Principles of Chemistry. By Edmund J. 

 Mills, D.Sc, F.P.S., Young Professor of Technical Che- 

 mistry in the Andersonian College, Glasgow*. 



Contents. 



(1) A property of First Principles. — (2) Special difficulties of the investi- 

 gation. — (3) Need of it. — (4) The first principle of science is motion — 

 (5) of chemistry, action. — (6) Such action is determinate, continuous, 

 proportional to mass, and occurs between wholes ; it is not, therefore, 

 expressible by the ordinary symbols. — (7) Experiments of Gladstone, 

 Harcourt & Esson, Guldberg & Waage; those of Bunsen and Debus 

 are consistent with continuity. Chemical action cannot be regarded as 

 finite. — (8) Acting substance is directed motion ; homogeneous, not 

 partite. Digression on isomerism. — (9) Consequences traced : vices of 

 current speculation: diffuse and concrete motion. — (10) Symbols of 

 substance, operation, equivalence. " Valencies " cannot form an arith- 

 metical series. Equivalent defined. — (11) Table of theses and anti- 

 theses. — (12) Principles on which to found a decision. 



(1) "THIRST principles are of all portions of a science the most 

 J- difficult to grasp. The explanation of this fact lies in 

 the law, first pointed out by Professor Ferrier (Institutes, p. 

 12), that what is first in the order of nature is last in the order 

 of knowledge. To that subtle and accomplished philosopher 

 (now, alas ! no longer with us) the pure reason of mankind 

 stands in eternal debt, and not least for the power and beauty 

 of his exposition of this law of scientific progress. For, if it 

 be progress to attain first principles, then " all science can ad- 

 vance only by going, in a manner, backwards, or rather by 

 coming round;" and "the apotheosis and final triumph of 



* Communicated by the Author. 

 Phil Mag. S. 5. Vol. 1. No. 1. Jan. 1876. B 



