I wish only to call
attention to the species of scepticism generated in every
uninformed mind by the most general conclusions of chemical
philosophy, or, better, by the irreconcilable hypotheses which
serve as the basis of its theories. Chemistry is truly the
despair of reason: on all sides it mingles with the fanciful; and
the more knowledge of it we gain by experience, the more it
envelops itself in impenetrable mysteries. This thought was
recently suggested to me by reading M. Liebig's "Letters on
Chemistry" (Paris, Masgana, 1845, translation of Bertet-Dupiney
and Dubreuil Helion).
Thus M. Liebig, after having banished from science hypothetical
causes and all the entities admitted by the ancients,--such as
the creative power of matter, the horror of a vacuum, the esprit
recteur, etc. (p. 22),--admits immediately, as necessary to the
comprehension of chemical phenomena, a series of entities no less
obscure,--vital force, chemical force, electric force, the force
of attraction, etc. (pp. 146, 149). One might call it a
realization of the properties of bodies, in imitation of the
psychologists' realization of the faculties of the soul under the
names liberty, imagination, memory, etc.
Pages:
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43