The molecule of an element usually contains two atoms; that of a compound may have two, or it may have hundreds. For a given compound the number is always definite.
Chemism is the force that binds atoms together to form molecules. The sugar molecule contains atoms, forty-five in all, of three different elements: carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. That of salt has two atoms: one of sodium, one of chlorine. Should we say "an atom of sugar"? Why? Of what is a mass of sugar made up? A molecule? A mass of carbon? A molecule? Did the chemical affinity of the acid break up masses or molecules? In this respect it is a type of all chemical action. The distinction between physics and chemistry is here well shown. The molecule is the unit of the physicist, the atom that of the chemist. However large the masses changed by chemical action, that action is always on the individual molecule, the atoms of which are separated. If the molecule were an indivisible particle, no science of chemistry would be possible. The physicist finds the properties of masses of matter and resolves them into molecules, the chemist breaks up the molecule and from its atoms builds up other compounds.
Analysis is the separation of compounds into their elements.
Synthesis is the building up of compounds from their elements.
Of which is the sugar experiment an example? Metathesis is an exchange of atoms in two different compounds; it gives rise to still other compounds.
A chemical change may add something to a substance, or subtract something from it, or it may both subtract and add, making a new substance with entirely different properties. Sulphur and carbon are two stable solids. The chemical union of the two forms a volatile liquid. A substance may be at one time a solid, at another a liquid, at another a gas, and yet not undergo any chemical change, because in each case the chemical composition is identical.
State which of these are chemical changes: rusting of iron, falling of rain, radiation of heat, souring of milk, evaporation of water, decay of vegetation, burning of wood, breaking of iron, bleaching of cloth. Give any other illustrations that occur to you.
Chemistry treats of matter in its simplest forms, and of the various combinations of those simplest forms.