Copy 1, Volume 1
Experiments and observations on different kinds of air / By Joseph Priestley.
- Joseph Priestley
- Date:
- 1775-1784
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Experiments and observations on different kinds of air / By Joseph Priestley. Source: Wellcome Collection.
22/376
![rule not to conceal the real ‘views with which I have made experiments ; becaiife though, by following a contrary maxim, I might have acquired a charaflerof great¬ er fagacity, I think that two very good ends are anfwered by the method that I have adopted. For it both tends to make a narrative of a coiirfe of experiments more interefting, and likewife encourages other adventurers in experimental philofophy ^ fiiewing them that, by purfuing even falfe lights, real and important truths may be difeovered, and that in feeking one thing w^e often find another. In fome refpecls, indeed, this method makes the narrative longer^ but it is by making it Icfs tedious; and in other re- l])efts I have written much more concifely than is ufual with thofe who publifli ac¬ counts of their experiments. In this trea- tife the reader will often find the refult of long procefl’es exprefied in a few lines, and of many fuch in a fingle paragraph ^ each of which, if I had, with the ufual parade, deferibed it at large (explaining firll the preparation^ then reciting the rv- perime7it](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30532401_0001_0022.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
