CHEMISTRY

(The word is probably derived from the Coptic root ehems or hhems, signifying obscure or secret. The German word geheim is apparently of the same origin.) Chemistry is a department of science, the objects of which are to investigate the nature and properties of the elements of matter, and their mutual actions and combinations;to as certain the proportions in which they unite, and the modes of separating them when united; and to in-?[uire into the laws and powers which preside over and afect these agencies. As an art, chemistry may be traced to a very remote period; but it can scarcely be said to have existed as a science previous to the commencement ot the seventeenth century: and in tracing its early history we shall find the principal materials upon which it is founded in the works of Bacon, Boyle, Hooke, Mayow, and Newton. As induction from experiment is the exclusive basis of chemical science, little progre could be made in it till the futility of the ancient philosophical systems had been exposed, and their influence annihilated, and till the nece ity of that form of severe experimental inquiry had been «3tablished which " first procures the light, and then shows the way by its means." Upon such foundations, laid by Bacon, the other philosophers whose names have been mentioned proceeded to bring together and arrange the materia. s which had been furnished by their predece ors, »nd were thence led into that train of true philosophical reasoning and research which served as an emulatory example to their immediate succe ors, and which has led in our limes to the gigantic results of modern discovery. It is well known that the alchemists had accumulated a number of valuable but isolated chemical facts, and that they had explored with considerable diligence the abstract 218 [s. 232]