Researches chemical and philosophical: chiefly concerning nitrous oxide or dephlogisticated nitrous air and its respiration / By Humphry Davy.

  • Davy, Humphry, Sir, 1778-1829.
Date:
1800
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches chemical and philosophical: chiefly concerning nitrous oxide or dephlogisticated nitrous air and its respiration / By Humphry Davy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ( xiii. ) ceptigns by the ftate of feeling, it appears nearly impoflible that all the relations of a feries of phaenomcna can be difeovered by a tingleinvefli- galion, particularly when thefe relations arc complicated, and many of the agents unknown. Fortunately for the adlive and progretTive na- ture of the human mind, even experimental rcfearch is only a method of approximation to truth. In the arrangement of fa(Sls, I have been % guided as much as potiible by obvious and limple analogies only. Hence I have feldom entered into theoretical difeuffions, particularly concerning light, heat, and other agents, which are known only by ifolatcd effetfls. Early experience has taught me the folly of hafty generalifation. We arc ignorant of the laws of corpufcular motion ; and an immenfe niafs of minute obfervations concerning the more complicated chemical changes muft be colle61cd, probably before we lhall be able to afeertain even whether we arc capable of difeoveringthem. / Chemiftry in its prefent (late,'is limply a partial \ I