Exposition of the atomic theory of chymistry : and the doctrine of definite proportions / by William James Macneven ... ; with an appendix of chymical exercises, by the pupils of the laboratory, &c.

  • MacNeven, William James, 1763-1841.
Date:
1819
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Exposition of the atomic theory of chymistry : and the doctrine of definite proportions / by William James Macneven ... ; with an appendix of chymical exercises, by the pupils of the laboratory, &c. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    the same form; the juices the same astringent power ; the fruit is moulded to the same shape of an acorn, and has the same invariable property of never producing any other tree than an oak. All this shews that the elements of bodies are per- manent and unchangeable. Had they been liable to any gradual alteration or waste, the oaks of the pre- sent times, composed of those changed materials, would not be found to have the same qualities as the oaks of remote ages ; and the order and course of nature, as well as the qualities of her produc- tions would have been different from what they have uniformly appeared, and what we actually find them. Such obvious reflections on the course of nature have, in the earliest ages of philosophy, suggested the supposition of a certain number of unchangeable elements, of which it was imagined all things were composed, and on the successive separations and reunions of which depended the decay and repro- duction of all natural objects. This was the mean- ing of the opinion ascribed to Democritus, that all things were formed of atoms.* We are consequently warranted by the phenomena in assuming that the ultimate particles of matter are so