The result is, that we are wiser than we were, by having an
error the less in our catalogue; but the blank occasioned by it, must
remain for some happier hypothesist to fill up.
The dispute about the conversion and reconversion of water and air, is
still stoutly kept up. The contradictory experiments of chemists, leave
us at liberty to conclude what we please. My conclusion is, that art has
not yet invented sufficient aids, to enable such subtle bodies to make a
well defined impression on organs as blunt as ours: that it is laudable
to encourage investigation, but to hold back conclusion. Speaking one
day with Monsieur de Buffon on the present ardor of chemical inquiry, he
affected to consider chemistry but as cookery, and to place the toils
of the laboratory on a footing with those of the kitchen. I think it,
on the contrary, among the most useful of sciences, and big with future
discoveries for the utility and safety of the human race. It is yet,
indeed, a mere embryon. Its principles are contested; experiments seem
contradictory; their subjects are so minute as to escape our senses; and
their result too fallacious to satisfy the mind.
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