Three presidential addresses to the Chemical Section of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow : on the study of the history of chemistry, recent inquiries into the early history of chemistry, eleven centuries of chemistry / by John Ferguson.

  • Ferguson, John, 1838-1916.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Three presidential addresses to the Chemical Section of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow : on the study of the history of chemistry, recent inquiries into the early history of chemistry, eleven centuries of chemistry / by John Ferguson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    the interest felt for science among the French. Both countries, and especially Germany, can also produce several histories of chemistry of greater or less value, written in recent times. One may regret, also, that such a body as the Royal Society,* or the British Association, is not able to organise a scheme similar to that of the Munich Academy, and to issue a series on the history of science in Britain during the last 150 or 200 years. Among the problems which the history of chemistry affords, that of tracing the origin of the science is one of the most interesting, and at the same time most recondite. In searching for this we must not start with a preconceived notion of the importance of this or that period of history ; we must try to attain it, not by carrying back the modern concept to a definite starting point, and not by supposing that the progress of chemical ideas was solely an out- growth from the mind being directed in one course of observation and thinking. On the contrary, since the progress of ideas in one line of thought sooner or later conditions and is conditioned by progress in other branches of inquiry, and even originates new topics for investigation and discussion, we may rather look for chemical notions appearing from time to time incidentally in the midst of other developments of thought. As the idea of history— whether of special or of universal and philosophical—is that of evolution, from simple to complex relations and manifestations, we may expect chemistry not only in itself, but also in its general relations, as a body of ascertained and partially reasoned facts, to agree with this idea. The time, therefore, at which we shall choose to recognise the commencement of any special phase will depend very much upon the weight we attach to the details of the manifestation at the time we examine it, the delicacy of our perception of cause and effect, the germs or antecedents of thought and their outgrowth. But on whatever period we finally settle, we shall always find that the phase of the period immediately preceding to some extent determines that which follows — that, in short, the difficulty of finding an absolute beginning which is experienced in pure thought reproduces itself in merely temporal events. There seems to have been a reason, though not exactly what they supposed, in the older historians pushing back the origin of their • It must not bo forgotten, however, that the Royal Society has recently done good historical work in compiling an index to scientific periodical literature.