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

  • Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent, 1743-1794
Date:
1790
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

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    ftudy of chemiftry thoroughly to underftand them. Hence I have been obliged to depart from the ufual order of courfes of ledlures and of treatifes upon chemiftry, which always af- fume the firft principles of the fcience, as knpwn, when the pupil or the reader fliould never be fuppofed to know them till they have been ex- plained in fubfequent leflbns. In almoft every inftance, thefe begin by^treating of the elements of matter, and by explaining the table of affini- ties, without conlidering, that, in fo doing, they muft bring the principal phenomena of chemiftry into view at the very outfet: They make ufe of terms which have not been defined,*and fuppofe the fcience to be linderftood by the very'perfons they are only beginning to teach. It ought likewife to be confidered, that very little of che- miftry can be learned in a firft courfe, which is hardly fufficient to make the language of the fcience familiar to the ears, or the apparatus familiar to the eyes. It is almoft impoffible to become a chemift in lefs than three or four years of conftant application. fhefe inconveniencies are occafioned not fo much by the nature of the fubjecl, as by the method of teaching it; and, to avoid them, I was