A refutation of the remarks on the Institutes of experimental chemistry: in a letter addressed to the members of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce / [Robert Dossie].

  • Dossie, Robert, -1777
Date:
1760
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A refutation of the remarks on the Institutes of experimental chemistry: in a letter addressed to the members of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce / [Robert Dossie]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/54 (page 6)
    whofe ftudles. or praftice, they were particularly intended. I flatter myfelf, from all thefe circum- ftances, they would ftill have enjoyed the fame advantages, had their author been yet unknown; and that they would have remained uncenfured, had they continued anonymous. But an oc¬ curence, of which you are well apprized, in¬ duced me lately to declare myfelf the author of them: and afforded the fame motives to others to cenfure, or rather abufe them, as to myfelf to claim them. Your fociety thought proper to inftitute the office of a principal fecretary ^ and many of my friends intimated their opi¬ nions to me, that they thought me a fit perfon to fill it -y and urged me to offer myfelf a can¬ didate : to which having confented, it was thought neceffary, that I ffiould avow fuch of the works I had publifhed, as had any relation to thofe fubjeds, which make the objedt of your fociety*s confideration ; as you might from thence have the moft certain method of judging of my qualifications. This was more particularly expedient; becaufe one of them, the Handmaid to the Arts, treated exprefsly and folely of thofe matters, which make the ob- Jed of your care and encouragement; and was publifhed with a defign fo correfpondent to yours, that I dedicated it to you; and pointed out, in the preface, fome ^ very ftrong political reafons for the inftitution of fuch a fociety; which had not, to my knowledge, been before offered to the public. In making this ufe of the works I had publiffied, I ertiployed none of thofe arti- fipeSg