Elements of chemistry, in a new systematic order, containing all the modern discoveries. ... / Translated from the French by R. Kerr.

  • Antoine Lavoisier
Date:
1799
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elements of chemistry, in a new systematic order, containing all the modern discoveries. ... / Translated from the French by R. Kerr. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    wants, the fenfation of want exciting the idea of the object by which it is to be gratified. In this manner, from a feries of fenfations, obferva- tions, and analyfes, a fucceffive train of ideas a- rifes, fo linked together, that an attentive obfer- yer may trace back, to a certain point, the order and connection of the whole fum of human know-. ledge. ~ When we begin the ftudy of any {fcience, we are in a fituation, refpeCting that fcience, fimilar to children; and the courfe by which __we have to advance, is precifely the fame which Nature follows in the formation of their ideas. In a child, the idea is merely an effect produced by a fenfation; and, in the fame manner, in commencing the ftudy of a phyfical fcience, we ought to.form no idea but what is a neceflary _confequence, and immediate effect, of an expe- riment or obfervation. Befides, he who enter’s - upon the career of fcience, is in a lefs advanta- geous fituation than a child who is acquiring his firft ideas. To the child, Nature gives va- rious means of rectifying any miftakes he may commit re{pecting the falutary or hurtful quali- ties of the objects which furround him. On fvery occafion his judgments are corrected by EXpevience ;
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