A manual of chemistry : containing the principal facts of the science, arranged in the order in which they are discussed and illustrated in the lectures at the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

  • Brande, William Thomas, 1788-1866.
Date:
1819
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of chemistry : containing the principal facts of the science, arranged in the order in which they are discussed and illustrated in the lectures at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    cular whispers; or else fancies he made some mistake as to the exact quantity of the ingredients, or nicety of the experiment; and thus repeats the operation without end. And if, in the mean time, among all the chances of experiments, he throws any which appear either new or useful, he feeds his mind with these as so many earnests; boasts and extols them above measure ; and conceives great hopes of what is behind. It must, indeed, be allowed that the alchemists have made many discoveries, and obliged mankind with useful inventions; but they are well represented in that fable of the old man, who left an estate to his children, (buried somewhere or other, he told them, in his vineyard;) which they, therefore, fell to dig for with great diligence; whereby, though they found no gold in substance, yet they received a better vintage for their labour.” “ But such as apply to natural magic, and explain every thing by sympathies and antipathies, have, by supine and indolent conjectures, placed strange virtues and operations in things; and if, at any time, they have produced works, they are rather suited to admiration and strangeness, than to fruit and advantage*.” * Novum Organuin. Section V.