Chemistry, a science so essentially requisite to explain the phenomena
of known and unknown substances, was studied chiefly by jugglers and
fanatics;--their systems, replete with metaphysical nonsense, and
composed of the most crude and heterogeneous materials, served rather to
nourish superstition than to establish facts, and illustrate useful
truths. Universal remedies, in various forms, met with strenuous
advocates and deluded consumers. The path of accurate observation and
experiment was forsaken: instead of penetrating into the mysterious
recesses of nature, they bewildered themselves in the labyrinth of
fanciful speculation; they overstepped the bounds of good sense,
modesty, and truth; and the blind led the blind. The prolongation of
life too was no longer sought for in a manner agreeable to the dictates
of nature; even this interesting branch of human pursuits was rendered
subservient to chemistry, or rather to the confused system of alchymy.
Original matter was considered as the elementary cause of all beings, by
which they expected literally to work miracles, to transmute the base
into noble metals, to metamorphose man in his animal state by chemical
processes, to render him more durable, and to secure him against early
decline and dissolution.
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