Inorganic chemistry / by Edward Frankland and Francis R. Japp.

  • Edward Frankland
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Inorganic chemistry / by Edward Frankland and Francis R. Japp. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of water from the clouds to the sea are the result of the action of a force called gravity. The department of knowledge which deals with these pheno- mena is termed Natural Science. Natural science studies and investigates the whole range of sensible objects. ' It teaches us the properties of these objects and the various changes which they undergo, either in the ordinary course of nature or by the application of extraordinary and arti- ficial means. This vast field of observation and research has been divided into two great sections, viz.:— 1. Statical sciences. 2. Dynamical sciences. The statical sciences study objects in a state of rest with reference to their form, magnitude, situation, structure, and other properties; such branches of science are Descriptive Astronomy and Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, ^Zoology, Animal and Vegetable Anatomy. The dynamical sciences take into consideration the changes to which sensible objects are subject. They are sub-divided into two groups. The first group studies these changes without reference to their causes: such are Physical Astronomy and Geology, and Animal and Vegetable Physiology. The second group investigates the changes which bodies undergo with special reference to the causes of such changes. These are Physics and Chemistry. This classification of the natural sciences, however, must not be taken in too strict a sense, especially in the case of the second section, for the astronomer and geologist are nowadays rarely content to observe changes without inquiring into their causes: the same is still more frequently the case with the physiologist, and thus physics and chemistry are continually appealed to in the develop- ment of astronomy, geology, and physiology. The force to which the phenomena of chemistry are primarily ascribed, and which is commonly termed chemical affinity, is there- fore closely associated with the other great forces of nature, but it is sharply distinguished from them, in the first place, by producing permanent changes in the properties of the bodies subject to its action. The other forces do not permanently alter the properties of matter, but when substances are brought under the influence of chemical force, they are scarcely if at all afterwards recognisable by the unaided senses. The presence of the bright, hard, colourless
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