That would be an injudicious anticipation; for you would not comprehend the nature of such discoveries and useful applications, as well as you will do hereafter. Without a due regard to method, we cannot expect to make any progress in chemistry. I wish to direct your observations chiefly to the chemical operations of Nature; but those of Art are certainly of too high importance to pass unnoticed. We shall therefore allow them also some share of our attention.
EMILY.
Well, then, let us now set to work regularly. I am very anxious to begin.
MRS. B.
The object of chemistry is to obtain a knowledge of the intimate nature of bodies, and of their mutual action on each other. You find therefore, Caroline, that this is no narrow or confined science, which comprehends every thing material within our sphere.
CAROLINE.
On the contrary, it must be inexhaustible; and I am a loss to conceive how any proficiency can be made in a science whose objects are so numerous.
MRS. B.
If every individual substance were formed of different materials, the study of chemistry would, indeed, be endless; but you must observe that the various bodies in nature are composed of certain elementary principles, which are not very numerous.
CAROLINE.