A History of Chemistry

Abstract

IT is difficult to find excuses for a new “History of Chemistry” which starts from ancient times and brings the story down to the present day. All that can be usefully said about the alchemists and the early chemists before Lavoisier has been repeated many times in the various histories by Thomas Thomson, Kopp, Ernst von Meyer, Wurtz, Thorpe, and others, besides the innumerable special essays such as those of Thorpe and the Memorial Lectures of the Chemical Society. Teachers agree that the study of history in every department of thought is valuable to the Student and indispensable to everyone who wishes to understand the present position and how it has been arrived at in each division of physical and natural science. It appears to the present writer that the process of tracing the evolution of ideas in science is most likely to be accomplished best by one who is contemporary with the discoveries which have led to advance and has taken part in discussions arising therefrom. One or two historians in every generation or about every thirty or forty years would be able to record correctly the progress which has been made in his own time. The history of science is not exactly comparable with the history of human affairs, which demands the lapse of a certain amount of time before a true valuation of events and movements becomes possible.

A History of Chemistry.

By Prof. F. J. Moore. Pp. xiv + 292. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc.; London: Hill Publishing Co., Ltd., 1918.) Price 12s. 6d. net.