Volume 1

The elements of experimental chemistry / by William Henry.

  • Henry, William, 1774-1836.
Date:
1815
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The elements of experimental chemistry / by William Henry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    scope for improvement, and an extensive range for ingenuity and invention. But from what class of men are we to expect useful discoveries ? Are we to trust, as hitherto, to the favour of chance and accident; to the fortuitous success of those who are not guided in their experiments by any general principles ? Or shall we not rather endea- vour to inform the artist, and induce him to sub- stitute, for vague and random conjecture, the torch of induction and of rational analogy ? In the pre- sent imperfect state of his knowledge, the artist is even unable fully to avail himself of those fortunate accidents, by which improvements sometimes occur in his processes; because, to the eye of common observation, he may have acted agreeably to es- tablished rules, and have varied in circumstances which he can neither perceive nor appreciate. The man of science, in these instances, sees more deeply, and, by availing himself of a minute and accidental difference, contributes at once to the promotion of his own interest, and to the advance- ment of his art. But it is the union of theory with practice that is now recommended. And, when theoretical knowledge and practical skill are happily combined in the same person, the intellectual power of man appears in its full perfection, and fits him equally to conduct, with a masterly hand, the details of ordinary business, and to contend successfully with the untried difficulties of new and perplexing