The Principles of Chemistry, Volume I

by Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev

Those who enlist in the cause of science have no reason to fear when they remember the urgent need for practical workers in the spheres of agriculture, arts, and manufacture. By summoning adherents to the work of theoretical chemistry, I am confident that I call them to a most useful labour, to the habit of dealing correctly with nature and its laws, and to the possibility of becoming truly practical men. In order to become actual chemists, it is necessary for beginners to be well and closely acquainted with three important branches of chemistry—analytical, organic, and theoretical. That part of chemistry which is dealt with in this treatise is only the groundwork of the edifice. For the learning and development of chemistry in its truest and fullest sense, beginners ought, in the first place, to turn their attention to the practical work of analytical chemistry; in the second place, to practical and theoretical acquaintance with some special chemical question, studying the original treatises of the investigators of the subject (at first, under the direction of experienced teachers), because in working out particular facts the faculty of judgment and of correct criticism becomes sharpened; in the third place, to a knowledge of current scientific questions through the special chemical journals and papers, and by intercourse with other chemists. The time has come to turn aside from visionary contemplation, from platonic aspirations, and from classical verbosity, and to enter the regions of actual labour for the common weal, to prove that the study of science is not only air excellent education for youth, but that it instils the virtues of industry and veracity, and creates solid national wealth, material and mental, which without it would be unattainable. Science, which deals with the infinite, is itself without bounds.

[2] I recommend those who are commencing the study of chemistry with my book to first read only what is printed in the large type, because in that part I have endeavoured to concentrate all the fundamental, indispensable knowledge required for that study. In the footnotes, printed in small type (which should be read only after the large text has been mastered), certain details are discussed; they are either further examples, or debatable questions on existing ideas which I thought useful to lay before those entering into the sphere of science, or certain historical and technical details which might be withdrawn from the fundamental portion of the book. Without intending to attain in my treatise to the completeness of a work of reference, I have still endeavoured to express the principal developments of science as they concern the chemical elements viewed in that aspect in which they appeared to me after long continued study of the subject and participation in the contemporary advance of knowledge.

I have also placed my personal views, suppositions, and arguments in the footnotes, which are chiefly designed for details and references. But I have endeavoured to avoid here, as in the text, not only all that I consider doubtful, but also those details which belong either to special branches of chemistry (for instance, to analytical, organic, physical, theoretical, physiological, agricultural, or technical chemistry), or to different branches of natural science which are more and more coming into closer and closer contact with chemistry. Chemistry, I am convinced, must occupy a place among the natural sciences side by side with mechanics; for mechanics treats of matter as a system of ponderable points having scarcely any individuality and only standing in a certain state of mobile equilibrium. For chemistry, matter is an entire world of life, with an infinite variety of individuality both in the elements and in their combinations. In studying the general uniformity from a mechanical point of view, I think that the highest point of knowledge of nature cannot be attained without taking into account the individuality of things in which chemistry is set to seek for general higher laws. Mechanics may be likened to the science of statesmanship, chemistry to the sciences of jurisprudence and sociology. The general universe could not be built up without the particular individual universe, and would be a dry abstract were it not enlivened by the real variety of the individual world. Mechanics forms the classical basis of natural philosophy, while chemistry, as a comparatively new and still young science, already strives to—and will, in the future introduce a new, living aspect into the philosophy of nature; all the more as chemistry alone is never at rest or anywhere dead—its vital action has universal sway, and inevitably determines the general aspect of the universe. Just as the microscope and telescope enlarge the scope of vision, and discover life in seeming immobility, so chemistry, in discovering and striving to discern the life of the invisible world of atoms and molecules and their ultimate limit of divisibility, will clearly introduce new and important problems into our conception of nature. And I think that its rôle, which is now considerable, will increase more and more in the future; that is, I think that in its further development it will occupy a place side by side with mechanics for the comprehension of the secrets of nature. But here we require some second Newton; and I have no doubt that he will soon appear.

[3] I was much helped in gathering data from the various chemical journals of the last five years by the abstracts made for me by Mr. Y. V. Kouriloff, to whom I tender my best thanks.

[4] The English translation was made by G. Kamensky, and edited by A. J. Greenaway; published by Longmans, Green & Co.

[5] The German translation was made by L. Jawein and A. Thillot; published by Ricker (St. Petersburg).

[6] The French translation has been commenced by E. Achkinasi and H. Carrion from the fifth edition, and is published by Tignol (Paris).

[7] The fifth edition was not only considerably enlarged, compared with the preceding, but also the foundations of the periodic system of the elements were placed far more firmly in it than in the former editions. The subject-matter was also divided into text and footnotes, which contained details unnecessary for a first acquaintance with chemistry. The fifth edition sold out sooner than I expected, so that instead of issuing supplements (containing the latest discoveries in chemistry), as I had proposed, I was obliged to publish the present entirely new edition of the work.

[8] This hypothesis is not only mentioned in different parts of this book, but is partly (from the aspect of the specific gravity of solutions) developed in my work, The Investigation of Solutions from their Specific Gravity, 1887.