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[February, 
ANALYSES OF BOOKS. 
A Treatise on the Principles of Chemistry. By M. M. Pattison 
Muir, M.A., F.R.S.E., Fellow and Praelector in Chemistry 
of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Cambridge : 
The University Press. 
For the first time since the formal installation of “ the new 
chemistry” we have an attempt to supply the student with an 
English equivalent to Lothar Meyer’s “ Modernen Theorien der 
Chemie.” The result of this praiseworthy and laborious under- 
taking is a philosophy of chemistry of signal value to the true 
student. The true student, — that is the man who seeks for 
something more than to store his memory with facts, more or 
less satisfactorily established. 
Mr. Muir’s fitness for his task will be at once admitted by such 
of our readers as have carefully perused his paper on “ Recent 
Chemical Researches” (“Journal of Science,” 1876, p. 30), and 
his memoir on “ Scientific Method” (Id., 1877, p. 476), whilst 
the spirit by which he is actuated may be judged from the motto 
which he selects for his title-page : — “ In Nature everything 
is distinct, yet nothing defined into absolute independent 
singleness.” 
In proof of Mr. Muir’s ability to distinguish true progress 
from mere change dictated by and ministering to a frivolous 
vanity, we may quote the following passages, which would have 
gladdened the heart of the late Hermann Kolbe. Speaking of 
the difficulty of expressing the “ power of doing ” of a com- 
pound in an intelligible formula, he writes : — “ I call the student’s 
attention to the kinetical aspects of the structural formulae now 
used in chemistry, because I consider it of paramount importance 
that he should remember how little information these formulae 
give in comparison with what we should desire to have ; that he 
should not forget that the experimental methods by which these 
formulae are obtained are for the most part kinetical methods, 
while the interpretation of the results is expressed in language 
which has grown out of almost purely statical considerations ; 
and that while he recognises the vast importance of structural 
formulae, he may still refuse to bow the knee to this chemical 
Baal which has been set up in these times, so aptly described by 
Remsen as the era of ‘ formula-worship.’ ” 
Again he writes : — “ I have tried always to exhibit the hypo- 
theses of chemistry as at once arising from facts and serving as 
