I had been made religious by the conversations of Ambrosio in Italy; my
faith was strengthened and exalted by the opinions of the Unknown, for
whom I had not merely that veneration awakened by exalted talents, but a
strong affection founded upon the essential benefit of the preservation
of my life owing to him. I ventured, the evening after our visit to the
cave of Adelsberg, to ask him some questions relating to his history and
adventures. He said, "To attempt to give you any idea of the formation
of my character would lead me into the history of my youth, which almost
approaches to a tale of romance. The source of the little information
and intelligence I possess I must refer to a restless activity of spirit,
a love of glory which ever belonged to my infancy, and a sensibility
easily excited and not easily conquered. My parentage was humble, yet I
can believe a traditional history of my paternal grandmother, that the
origin of our family was from an old Norman stock; I found this belief
upon certain feelings which I can only refer to an hereditary source, a
pride of decorum, a tact and refinement even in boyhood, and which are
contradictory to the idea of an origin from a race of peasants. Accident
opened to me in early youth a philosophical career, which I pursued with
success. In manhood fortune smiled upon me and made me independent; I
then really became a philosopher, and pursued my travels with the object
of instructing myself and of benefiting mankind. I have seen most parts
of Europe, and conversed, I believe, with all the illustrious men of
science belonging to them. My life has not been unlike that of the
ancient Greek sages. I have added some little to the quantity of human
knowledge, and I have endeavoured to add something to the quantity of
human happiness. In my early life I was a sceptic; I have informed you
how I became a believer, and I constantly bless the Supreme Intelligence
for the favour of some gleams of Divine light which have been vouchsafed
to me in this our state of darkness and doubt."
_Phil_.--I am surprised that with your powers you did not enter into a
professional career either of law or politics; you would have gained the
highest honours and distinctions.
_The Unknown_.--To me there never has been a higher source of honour or
distinction than that connected with advances in science. I have not
possessed enough of the eagle in my character to make a direct flight to
the loftiest altitudes in the social world, and I certainly never
endeavoured to reach those heights by using the creeping powers of the
reptile who, in ascending, generally chooses the dirtiest path, because
it is the easiest.
_Eub_.--I have often wondered that men of fortune and of rank do not
apply themselves more to philosophical pursuits; they offer a delightful
and enviable road to distinction, one founded upon the blessings and
benefits conferred on our fellow-creatures; they do not supply the same
sources of temporary popularity as successes in the senate or at the bar,
but the glory resulting from them is permanent and independent of vulgar
taste or caprice. In looking back to the history of the last five reigns
in England, we find Boyles, Cavendishes, and Howards, who rendered those
great names more illustrious by their scientific honours; but we may in
vain search the aristocracy now for philosophers, and there are very few
persons who pursue science with true dignity; it is followed more as
connected with objects of profit than those of fame, and there are fifty
persons who take out patents for supposed inventions for one who makes a
real discovery.
_Phil_.--The information we have already received from you proves to me
that chemistry has been your favourite pursuit. I am surprised at this.
The higher-mathematics and pure physics appear to me to offer much more
noble objects of contemplation and fields of discovery, and, practically
considered, the results of the chemist are much more humble, belonging
principally to the apothecary's shop and the kitchen.
_Eub_.--I feel disposed to join you in attacking this favourite study of
our friend, but merely to provoke him to defend it. I wish our attack
would induce him to vindicate his science, and that we might enjoy a
little of the sport of literary gladiators, at least, in order to call
forth his skill and awaken his eloquence.
_The Unknown_.--I have no objection. Let there be a fair discussion;
remember we fight only with foils, and the point of mine shall be covered
with velvet. In your attack upon chemistry, Philalethes, you limited the
use of it to the apothecary's shop and the kitchen. The first is an
equivocal use; by introducing it into the kitchen you make it an art
fundamental to all others. But if what you had stated had really meant
to be serious, it would not have deserved a reply; as it is in mere
playfulness, it shall not be thrown away. I want eloquence, however, to
adorn my subject, yet it is sufficiently exciting even to awaken feeling.
Persons in general look at the magnificent fabric of civilized society as
the result of the accumulated labour, ingenuity, and enterprise of man
through a long course of ages, without attempting to define what has been
owing to the different branches of human industry and science; and
usually attribute to politicians, statesmen, and warriors a much greater
share than really belongs to them in the work: what they have done is in
reality little. The beginning of civilization is the discovery of some
useful arts by which men acquire property, comforts, or luxuries. The
necessity or desire of preserving them leads to laws and social
institutions. The discovery of peculiar arts gives superiority to
particular nations; and the love of power induces them to employ this
superiority to subjugate other nations, who learn their arts, and
ultimately adopt their manners; so that in reality the origin, as well as
the progress and improvement, of civil society is founded in mechanical
and chemical inventions. No people have ever arrived at any degree of
perfection in their institutions who have not possessed in a high degree
the useful and refined arts. The comparison of savage and civilized man,
in fact, demonstrates the triumph of chemical and mechanical philosophy
as the causes not only of the physical, but ultimately even of moral
improvement. Look at the condition of man in the lowest state in which
we are acquainted with him. Take the native of New Holland, advanced
only a few steps above the animal creation, and that principally by the
use of fire; naked, defending himself against wild beasts or killing them
for food only by weapons made of wood hardened in the fire, or pointed
with stones or fish bones; living only in holes dug out of the earth, or
in huts rudely constructed of a few branches of trees covered with grass;
having no approach to the enjoyment of luxuries or even comforts; unable
to provide for his most pressing wants; having a language scarcely
articulate, relating only to the great objects of nature, or to his most
pressing necessities or desires, and living solitary or in single
families, unacquainted with religion, government, or laws, submitted to
the mercy of nature or the elements. How different is man in his highest
state of cultivation; every part of his body covered with the products of
different chemical and mechanical arts made not only useful in protecting
him from the inclemency of the seasons but combined in forms of beauty
and variety; creating out of the dust of the earth from the clay under
his feet instruments of use and ornament; extracting metals from the rude
ore and giving to them a hundred different shapes for a thousand
different purposes; selecting and improving the vegetable productions
with which he covers the earth; not only subduing but taming and
domesticating the wildest, the fleetest, and the strongest inhabitants of
the wood, the mountain, and the air; making the winds carry him on every
part of the immense ocean; and compelling the elements of air, water, and
even fire as it were to labour for him; concentrating in small space
materials which act as the thunderbolt, and directing their energies so
as to destroy at immense distances; blasting the rock, removing the
mountain, carrying water from the valley to the hill; perpetuating
thought in imperishable words, rendering immortal the exertion of genius,
and presenting them as common property to all awakening minds, becoming
as it were the true image of divine intelligence receiving and bestowing
the breath of life in the influence of civilization.
_Eub_.--Really you are in the poetical, not the chemical chair, or rather
on the tripod. We claim from you some accuracy of detail, some minute
information, some proofs of what you assert. What you attribute to the
chemical and mechanical arts, we might with the same propriety attribute
to the fine arts, to letters, to political improvement, and to those
inventions of which Minerva and Apollo and not Vulcan are the patrons.
_The Unknown_.--I will be more minute. You will allow that the rendering
skins insoluble in water by combining with them the astringent principle
of certain vegetables is a chemical invention, and that without leather,
our shoes, our carriages, our equipages would be very ill made; you will
permit me to say, that the bleaching and dying of wool and silk, cotton,
and flax, are chemical processes, and that the conversion of them into
different clothes is a mechanical invention; that the working of iron,
copper, tin, and lead, and the other metals, and the combining them in
different alloys by which almost all the instruments necessary for the
turner, the joiner, the stone-mason, the ship-builder, and the smith are
made, are chemical inventions; even the press, to the influence of which
I am disposed to attribute as much as you can do, could not have existed
in any state of perfection without a metallic alloy; the combining of
alkali and sand, and certain clays and flints together to form glass and
porcelain is a chemical process; the colours which the artist employs to
frame resemblances of natural objects, or to create combinations more
beautiful than ever existed in Nature, are derived from chemistry; in
short, in every branch of the common and fine arts, in every department
of human industry, the influence of this science is felt, and we may find
in the fable of Prometheus taking the flame from heaven to animate his
man of clay an emblem of the effects of fire in its application to
chemical purposes in creating the activity and almost the life of civil
society.
_Phil_.--It appears to me that you attribute to science what in many
cases has been the result of accident. The processes of most of the
useful arts, which you call chemical, have been invented and improved
without any refined views, without any general system of knowledge.
Lucretius attributes to accident the discovery of the fusion of the
metals; a person in touching a shell-fish observes that it emits a purple
liquid as a dye, hence the Tyrian purple; clay is observed to harden in
the fire, and hence the invention of bricks, which could hardly fail
ultimately to lead to the discovery of porcelain; oven glass, the most
perfect and beautiful of those manufactures you call chemical, is said to
have been discovered by accident; Theophrastus states that some merchants
who were cooking on lumps of soda or natron, near the mouth of the river
Belus, observed that a hard and vitreous substance was formed where the
fused natron ran into the sand.
_The Unknown_.--I will readily allow that accident has had much to do
with the origin of the arts as with the progress of the sciences. But it
has been by scientific processes and experiments that these accidental
results have been rendered really applicable to the purposes of common
life. Besides, it requires a certain degree of knowledge and scientific
combination to understand and seize upon the facts which have originated
in accident. It is certain that in all fires alkaline substances and
sand are fused together, and clay hardened; yet for ages after this
discovery of fire, glass and porcelain were unknown till some men of
genius profited by scientific combination often observed but never
applied. It suits the indolence of those minds which never attempt
anything, and which probably if they did attempt anything would not
succeed, to refer to accident that which belongs to genius. It is
sometimes said by such persons, that the discovery of the law of
gravitation was owing to accident: and a ridiculous story is told of the
falling of an apple as the cause of this discovery. As well might the
invention of fluxions or the architectural wonders of the dome of St.
Peter's, or the miracles of art the St. John of Raphael or the Apollo
Belvidere, be supposed to be owing to accidental combinations. In the
progress of an art, from its rudest to its more perfect state, the whole
process depends upon experiments. Science is in fact nothing more than
the refinement of common sense making use of facts already known to
acquire new facts. Clays which are yellow are known to burn red;
calcareous earth renders flint fusible--the persons who have improved
earthenware made their selections accordingly. Iron was discovered at
least one thousand years before it was rendered malleable; and from what
Herodotus says of this discovery, there can be little doubt that it was
developed by a scientific worker in metals. Vitruvius tells us that the
ceruleum, a colour made of copper, which exists in perfection in all the
old paintings of the Greeks and Romans and on the mummies of the
Egyptians, was discovered by an Egyptian king; there is therefore every
reason to believe that it was not the result of accidental combination,
but of experiments made for producing or improving colours. Amongst the
ancient philosophers, many discoveries are attributed to Democritus and
Anaxagoras; and, connected with chemical arts, the narrative of the
inventions of Archimedes alone, by Plutarch, would seem to show how great
is the effect of science in creating power. In modern times, the
refining of sugar, the preparation of nitre, the manufacturing of acids,
salts, &c., are all results of pure chemistry. Take gunpowder as a
specimen; no person but a man infinitely diversifying his processes and
guided by analogy could have made such a discovery. Look into the books
of the alchemists, and some idea may be formed of the effects of
experiments. It is true, these persons were guided by false views, yet
they made most useful researches; and Lord Bacon has justly compared them
to the husbandman who, searching for an imaginary treasure, fertilised
the soil. They might likewise be compared to persons who, looking for
gold, discover the fragments of beautiful statues, which separately are
of no value, and which appear of little value to the persons who found
them; but which, when selected and put together by artists and their
defective parts supplied, are found to be wonderfully perfect and worthy
of conservation. Look to the progress of the arts since they have been
enlightened by a system of science, and observe with what rapidity they
have advanced. Again, the steam-engine in its rudest form was the result
of a chemical experiment; in its refined state it required the
combinations of all the most recondite principles of chemistry and
mechanics, and that excellent philosopher who has given this wonderful
instrument of power to civil society was led to the great improvements he
made by the discoveries of a kindred genius on the heat absorbed when
water becomes steam, and of the heat evolved when steam becomes water.
Even the most superficial observer must allow in this case a triumph of
science, for what a wonderful impulse has this invention given to the
progress of the arts and manufactories in our country, how much has it
diminished labour, how much has it increased the real strength of the
country! Acting as it were with a thousand hands, it has multiplied our
active population; and receiving its elements of activity from the bowels
of the earth, it performs operations which formerly were painful,
oppressive, and unhealthy to the labourers, with regularity and
constancy, and gives security and precision to the efforts of the
manufacturer. And the inventions connected with the steam-engine, at the
same time that they have greatly diminished labour of body, have tended
to increase power of mind and intellectual resources. Adam Smith well
observes that manufacturers are always more ingenious than husbandmen;
and manufacturers who use machinery will probably always be found more
ingenious than handicraft manufacturers. You spoke of porcelain as a
result of accident; the improvements invented in this country, as well as
those made in Germany and France, have been entirely the result of
chemical experiments; the Dresden and the Sevres manufactories have been
the work of men of science, and it was by multiplying his chemical
researches that Wedgewood was enabled to produce at so cheap a rate those
beautiful imitations which while they surpass the ancient vases in
solidity and perfection of material, equal them in elegance, variety, and
tasteful arrangement of their forms. In another department, the use of
the electrical conductor was a pure scientific combination, and the
sublimity of the discovery of the American philosopher was only equalled
by the happy application he immediately made of it. In our own times it
would be easy to point out numerous instances in which great improvements
and beneficial results connected with the comforts, the happiness, and
even life of our fellow creatures have been the results of scientific
combinations; but I cannot do this without constituting myself a judge of
the works of philosophers who are still alive, whose researches are
known, whose labours are respected, and who will receive from posterity
praises that their contemporaries hardly dare to bestow upon them.
_Eub_.--We will allow that you have shown in many cases the utility of
scientific investigation as connected with the progress of the useful
arts. But, in general, both the principles of chemistry are followed,
and series of experiments performed without any view to utility; and a
great noise is made if a new metal or a new substance is discovered, or
if some abstracted law is made known relating to the phenomena of nature;
yet, amongst the variety of new substances, few have been applied to any
trifling use even, and the greater number have had no application at all.
And with respect to the general views of the science, it would be
difficult to show that any real good had resulted from the discovery or
extension of them. It does not add much to the dignity of a pursuit that
those persons who have followed it for profit have really been most
useful, and that the mere artisan or chemical manufacturer has done more
for society than the chemical philosopher. Besides, it has always
appeared to me that it is in the nature of this science to encourage
mediocrity and to attach importance to insignificant things; very slight
chemical labours seem to give persons a claim to the title of
philosopher--to have dissolved a few grains of chalk in an acid, to have
shown that a very useless stone contains certain known ingredients, or
that the colouring matter of a flower is soluble in acid and not in
alkali, is thought by some a foundation for chemical celebrity. I once
began to attend a course of chemical lectures and to read the journals
containing the ephemeral productions of this science; I was dissatisfied
with the nature of the evidence which the professor adopted in his
demonstrations, and disgusted with the series of observations and
experiments which were brought forward one month to be overturned the
next. In November there was a Zingeberic acid, which in January was
shown to have no existence; one year there was a vegetable acid, which
the next was shown to be the same as an acid known thirty years ago; to-
day a man was celebrated for having discovered a new metal or a new
alkali, and they flourished like the scenes in a new pantomime only to
disappear. Then, the great object of the hundred triflers in the science
appeared to be to destroy the reputation of the three or four great men
whose labours were really useful, and had in them something of dignity.
And, there not being enough of trifling results or false experiments to
fill up the pages of the monthly journals, the deficiency was supplied by
some crude theories or speculations of unknown persons, or by some ill-
judged censure or partial praise of the editor.
_The Unknown_.--I deny _in toto_ the accuracy of what you are advancing.
I have already shown that real philosophers, not labouring for profit,
have done much by their own inventions for the useful arts; and, amongst
the new substances discovered, many have had immediate and very important
applications. The chlorine, or oxymuriatic gas of Scheele, was scarcely
known before it was applied by Berthollet to bleaching; scarcely was
muriatic acid gas discovered by Priestley, when Guyton de Morveau used it
for destroying contagion. Consider the varied and diversified
applications of platinum, which has owed its existence as a useful metal
entirely to the labours of an illustrious chemical philosopher; look at
the beautiful yellow afforded by one of the new metals, chrome; consider
the medical effects of iodine in some of the most painful and disgusting
maladies belonging to human nature, and remember how short a time
investigations have been made for applying the new substances. Besides,
the mechanical or chemical manufacturer has rarely discovered anything;
he has merely applied what the philosopher has made known, he has merely
worked upon the materials furnished to him. We have no history of the
manner in which iron was rendered malleable; but we know that platinum
could only have been worked by a person of the most refined chemical
resources, who made multiplied experiments upon it after the most
ingenious and profound views. But, waiving all common utility, all
vulgar applications, there is something in knowing and understanding the
operation of Nature, some pleasure in contemplating the order and harmony
of the arrangements belonging to the terrestrial system of things. There
is no absolute utility in poetry, but it gives pleasure, refines and
exalts the mind. Philosophic pursuits have likewise a noble and
independent use of this kind, and there is a double reason offered for
pursuing them, for whilst in their sublime speculations they reach to the
heavens, in their application they belong to the earth; whilst they exalt
the intellect, they provide food for our common wants, and likewise
minister to the noblest appetites and most exalted views belonging to our
nature. The results of this science are not like the temples of the
ancients, in which statues of the gods were placed, where incense was
offered and sacrifices were performed, and which were presented to the
adoration of the multitude founded upon superstitious feelings; but they
are rather like the palaces of the moderns, to be admired and used, and
where the statues, which in the ancients raised feelings of adoration and
awe, now produce only feelings of pleasure, and gratify a refined taste.
It is surely a pure delight to know how and by what processes this earth
is clothed with verdure and life, how the clouds, mists, and rain are
formed, what causes all the changes of this terrestrial system of things,
and by what divine laws order is preserved amidst apparent confusion. It
is a sublime occupation to investigate the cause of the tempest and the
volcano, and to point out their use in the economy of things, to bring
the lightning from the clouds and make it subservient to our experiments,
to produce, as it were, a microcosm in the laboratory of art, and to
measure and weigh those invisible atoms which, by their motions and
changes according to laws impressed upon them by the Divine Intelligence,
constitute the universe of things. The true chemical philosopher sees
good in all the diversified forms of the external world. Whilst he
investigates the operations of infinite power guided by infinite wisdom,
all low prejudices, all mean superstitions, disappear from his mind. He
sees man an atom amidst atoms fixed upon a point in space, and yet
modifying the laws that are around him by understanding them, and
gaining, as it were, a kind of dominion over time and an empire in
material space, and exerting on a scale infinitely small a power seeming
a sort of shadow or reflection of a creative energy, and which entitles
him to the distinction of being made in the image of God and animated by
a spark of the Divine Mind. Whilst chemical pursuits exalt the
understanding, they do not depress the imagination or weaken genuine
feeling; whilst they give the mind habits of accuracy by obliging it to
attend to facts, they likewise extend its analogies, and though
conversant with the minute forms of things, they have for their ultimate
end the great and magnificent objects of Nature. They regard the
formation of a crystal, the structure of a pebble, the nature of a clay
or earth; and they apply to the causes of the diversity of our mountain
chains, the appearances of the winds, thunderstorms, meteors, the
earthquake, the volcano, and all those phenomena which offer the most
striking images to the poet and the painter. They keep alive that
inextinguishable thirst after knowledge which is one of the greatest
characteristics of our nature, for every discovery opens a new field for
investigation of facts, shows us the imperfection of our theories. It
has justly been said that the greater the circle of light, the greater
the boundary of darkness by which it is surrounded. This strictly
applies to chemical inquiries, and hence they are wonderfully suited to
the progressive nature of the human intellect, which by its increasing
efforts to acquire a higher kind of wisdom, and a state in which truth is
fully and brightly revealed, seems, as it were, to demonstrate its
birthright to immortality.
_Eub_.--I am glad that our opposition has led you to so complete a
vindication of your favourite science. I want no further proof of its
utility. I regret that I have not before made it a particular object of
study.
_Phil_.--As our friend has so fully convinced us of the importance of
chemistry, I hope he will descend to some particulars as to its real
nature, its objects, its instruments. I would willingly have a
definition of chemistry and some idea of the qualifications necessary to
become a chemist, and of the apparatus essential for understanding what
has been already done in the science, and for pursuing new inquiries.
_The Unknown_.--There is nothing more difficult than a good definition,
for it is scarcely possible to express in a few words the abstracted view
of an infinite variety of facts. Dr. Black has defined chemistry to be
that science which treats of the changes produced in bodies by motions of
their ultimate particles or atoms, but this definition is hypothetical,
for the ultimate particles or atoms are mere creations of the
imagination. I will give you a definition, which will have the merit of
novelty and which is probably general in its application. Chemistry
relates to those operations by which the intimate nature of bodies is
changed, or by which they acquire new properties. This definition will
not only apply to the effects of mixture, but to the phenomena of
electricity, and, in short, to all the changes which do not merely depend
upon the motion or division of masses of matter. However difficult it
may have been to have given you a definition of chemistry, it is still
more difficult to give you a detail of all the qualities necessary for a
chemical philosopher. I will not name as many as Athenaeus has named for
a cook, who, he says, ought to be a mathematician, a theoretical
musician, a natural philosopher, a natural historian, &c., though you had
a disposition just now to make chemistry merely subservient to the uses
of the kitchen. But I will seriously mention some of the studies
fundamental to the higher departments of this science; a man may be a
good practical chemist perhaps without possessing them, but he never can
become a great chemical philosopher. The person who wishes to understand
the higher departments of chemistry, or to pursue them in their most
interesting relations to the economy of Nature, ought to be well-grounded
in elementary mathematics; he will oftener have to refer to arithmetic
than algebra, and to algebra than to geometry. But all these sciences
lend their aid to chemistry; arithmetic, in determining the proportions
of analytical results and the relative weights of the elements of bodies;
algebra, in ascertaining the laws of the pressure of elastic fluids, the
force of vapour as dependent upon temperature, and the effects of masses
and surfaces on the communication and radiation of heat; the applications
of geometry are principally limited to the determination of the
crystalline forms of bodies, which constitute the most important type of
their nature, and often offer useful hints for analytical researches
respecting their composition. The first principles of natural philosophy
or general physics ought not to be entirely unknown to the chemist. As
the most active agents are fluids, elastic fluids, heat, light, and
electricity, he ought to have a general knowledge of mechanics,
hydrodynamics, pneumatics, optics, and electricity. Latin and Greek
among the dead and French among the modern languages are necessary, and,
as the most important after French, German and Italian. In natural
history and in literature what belongs to a liberal education, such as
that of our universities, is all that is required; indeed, a young man
who has performed the ordinary course of college studies which are
supposed fitted for common life and for refined society, has all the
preliminary knowledge necessary to commence the study of chemistry. The
apparatus essential to the modern chemical philosopher is much less bulky
and expensive than that used by the ancients. An air pump, an electrical
machine, a voltaic battery (all of which may be upon a small scale), a
blow-pipe apparatus, a bellows and forge, a mercurial and water-gas
apparatus, cups and basins of platinum and glass, and the common reagents
of chemistry, are what are required. All the implements absolutely
necessary may be carried in a small trunk, and some of the best and most
refined researches of modern chemists have been made by means of an
apparatus which might with ease be contained in a small travelling
carriage, and the expense of which is only a few pounds. The facility
with which chemical inquiries are carried on, and the simplicity of the
apparatus, offer additional reasons, to those I have already given, for
the pursuit of this science. It is not injurious to the health; the
modern chemist is not like the ancient one, who passed the greater part
of his time exposed to the heat and smoke of a furnace and the
unwholesome vapours of acids and alkalies and other menstrua, of which,
for a single experiment, he consumed several pounds. His processes may
be carried on in the drawing-room, and some of them are no less beautiful
in appearance than satisfactory in their results. It was said, by an
author belonging to the last century, of alchemy, "that its beginning was
deceit, its progress labour, and its end beggary." It may be said of
modern chemistry, that its beginning is pleasure, its progress knowledge,
and its objects truth and utility. I have spoken of the scientific
attainments necessary for the chemical philosopher; I will say a few
words of the intellectual qualities necessary for discovery or for the
advancement of the science. Amongst them patience, industry, and
neatness in manipulation, and accuracy and minuteness in observing and
registering the phenomena which occur, are essential. A steady hand and
a quick eye are most useful auxiliaries; but there have been very few
great chemists who have preserved these advantages through life; for the
business of the laboratory is often a service of danger, and the
elements, like the refractory spirits of romance, though the obedient
slave of the magician, yet sometimes escape the influence of his talisman
and endanger his person. Both the hands and eyes of others, however, may
be sometimes advantageously made use of. By often repeating a process or
an observation, the errors connected with hasty operations or imperfect
views are annihilated; and, provided the assistant has no preconceived
notions of his own, and is ignorant of the object of his employer in
making the experiment, his simple and bare detail of facts will often be
the best foundation for an opinion. With respect to the higher qualities
of intellect necessary for understanding and developing the general laws
of the science, the same talents I believe are required as for making
advancement in every other department of human knowledge; I need not be
very minute. The imagination must be active and brilliant in seeking
analogies; yet entirely under the influence of the judgment in applying
them. The memory must be extensive and profound; rather, however,
calling up general views of things than minute trains of thought. The
mind must not be, like an encyclopedia, a burthen of knowledge, but
rather a critical dictionary which abounds in generalities, and points
out where more minute information may be obtained. In detailing the
results of experiments and in giving them to the world, the chemical
philosopher should adopt the simplest style and manner; he will avoid all
ornaments as something injurious to his subject, and should bear in mind
the saying of the first king of Great Britain respecting a sermon which
was excellent in doctrine but overcharged with poetical allusions and
figurative language, "that the tropes and metaphors of the speaker were
like the brilliant wild flowers in a field of corn--very pretty, but
which did very much hurt the corn." In announcing even the greatest and
most important discoveries, the true philosopher will communicate his
details with modesty and reserve; he will rather be a useful servant of
the public, bringing forth a light from under his cloak when it is needed
in darkness, than a charlatan exhibiting fireworks and having a trumpeter
to announce their magnificence. I see you are smiling, and think what I
am saying in bad taste; yet, notwithstanding, I will provoke your smiles
still further by saying a word or two on his other moral qualities. That
he should be humble-minded, you will readily allow, and a diligent
searcher after truth, and neither diverted from this great object by the
love of transient glory or temporary popularity, looking rather to the
opinion of ages than to that of a day, and seeking to be remembered and
named rather in the epochas of historians than in the columns of
newspaper writers or journalists. He should resemble the modern
geometricians in the greatness of his views and the profoundness of his
researches, and the ancient alchemists in industry and piety. I do not
mean that he should affix written prayers and inscriptions of
recommendations of his processes to Providence, as was the custom of
Peter Wolfe, and who was alive in my early days, but his mind should
always be awake to devotional feeling, and in contemplating the variety
and the beauty of the external world, and developing its scientific
wonders, he will always refer to that infinite wisdom through whose
beneficence he is permitted to enjoy knowledge; and, in becoming wiser,
he will become better, he will rise at once in the scale of intellectual
and moral existence, his increased sagacity will be subservient to a more
exalted faith, and in proportion as the veil becomes thinner through
which he sees the causes of things he will admire more the brightness of
the divine light by which they are rendered visible.