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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    ness, the human race is really tending, in regular and progressive course towards im¬ provement, and that every age of the world is more enlightened than that which pre¬ ceded it. We know that history does not exactly bear us out in these hopes ; but we shall presently be able to trace the cause of such disappointment, and to calculate upon the probability of its continuance. Among the causes that have contributed to those vicissitudes of the human energies of which we have been speaking, some have, I think, ignorantly adduced local situation and climate; but let us remember one con¬ tradictory instance only, and it will be suf¬ ficient to confute such a notion. 66 Let us remember that the Greeks rose from the very dregs of barbarism till they became the masters of the world, and that that very Greece which was so long the garden of Eu¬ rope, afterwards became a sterile desert. Boeotia lay in the vicinity of Attica, and consequently enjoyed the same climate; yet were the Boeotians as dull as the Athenians were acute. The splendour too of Grecian science was diffused not only throughGreece