An introductory discourse [on the principles of chemical science], delivered in the amphitheatre of the London Institution. On Wednesday the 5th of May, 1819 / by William Thomas Brande.

  • Brande, William Thomas, 1788-1866.
Date:
1819
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introductory discourse [on the principles of chemical science], delivered in the amphitheatre of the London Institution. On Wednesday the 5th of May, 1819 / by William Thomas Brande. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    complaint of tile Roman poets, of the dete¬ rioration of the human race be well founded, to what a miserable state of degradation must it before this time have been reduced! After so long a descent, is it possible that nature could still have produced a Dante or an Ariosto, a Corneille or a Racine, a Shak- speare ora Milton, names which amply show that her vigour is not exhausted, but that she still continues to bring forth the fruits of the mind no less than those of the earth.” If we ascend from poetry to those nobler and more divine energies of the human mind which are employed in the search after truth; in removing the film from the intel¬ lectual eye of man; in developing the me¬ chanism of nature by experimental research; we have only to mention the names of Kep¬ ler, Galileo, and Copernicus ; of Boyle, Ba¬ con, Newton, and Hooke, to show that here nature has neither retrograded, nor remained stationary. It is folly, therefore, to assert, that the golden age has passed away, and that man is suffering corporeal and intellect tual degradation. On the contrary, let us hope, that if not baffled by its own perverse-