The Birth of Modern Chemistry.
§ 71. Chemistry as distinct from Alchemy and Iatro-chemistry commenced with Robert Boyle (see [plate 15]), who first clearly recognised that its aim is neither the transmutation of the metals nor the preparation of medicines, but the observation and generalisation of a certain class of phenomena; who denied the validity of the alchemistic view of the constitution of matter, and enunciated the definition of an element which has since reigned supreme in Chemistry; and who enriched the science with observations of the utmost importance. Boyle, however, was a man whose ideas were in advance of his times, and intervening between the iatro-chemical period and the Age of Modern Chemistry proper came the period of the Phlogistic Theory—a theory which had a certain affinity with the ideas of the alchemists.
PLATE 15.
PORTRAIT OF ROBERT BOYLE.
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