ABSTRACT
Chemistry is necessarily an experimental science: for as facts are the data from which its conclusions are drawn, and the evidence by which its principles are supported, a constant appeal to them is necessary; and yet so small, comparatively, is the number of these necessary elements presented to us spontaneously by nature, that were the authors to bound our knowledge by them, it would extend but a very small distance indeed, and that even in an uncertain manner. Hence the importance of multiplying facts by every means in our power whilst engaged in the pursuit of this science. Such then are the advantages which result from experiment; nor is the case at all exaggerated, for in Chemistry it may safely be stated that more than nine-tenths of the facts upon which the science is founded are thus evolved by artificial means.
