y state of perfection without a metallic alloy; the combining of
alkali and sand, and certain clays and flints together to form glass and
porcelain is a chemical process; the colours which the artist employs to
frame resemblances of natural objects, or to create combinations more
beautiful than ever existed in Nature, are derived from chemistry; in
short, in every branch of the common and fine arts, in every department
of human industry, the influence of this science is felt, and we may find
in the fable of Prometheus taking the flame from heaven to animate his
man of clay an emblem of the effects of fire in its application to
chemical purposes in creating the activity and almost the life of civil
society.

_Phil_.--It appears to me that you attribute to science what in many
cases has been the result of accident. The processes of most of the
useful arts, which you call chemical, have been invented and improved
without any refined views, without any general system of knowledge.
Lucretius attributes to accident the discovery of the fusion of the
metals; a person in touching a shell-fish observes that it emits a purple
liquid as a dye, hence the Tyrian purple; clay is observed to harden in
the fire, and hence the invention of bricks, which could hardly fail
ultimately to lead to the discovery of porcelain; oven glass, the most
perfect and beautiful of those manufactures you call chemical, is said to
have been discovered by accident; Theophrastus states that some merchants
who were cooking on lumps of soda or natron, near the mouth of the river
Belus, observed that a hard and vitreous substance was formed where the
fused natron ran into the sand.

_The Unknown_.--I will readily allow that accident has had much to do
with the origin of the arts as with the progress of the sciences. But it
has been by scientific processes and experiments that these accidental
results have been rendered really applicable to the purposes of common
life. Besides, it requires a certain degree of knowledge and scientific
combination to understand and seize upon the facts which have originated
in accident. It is certain that in all fires alkaline substances and
sand are fused together, and clay hardened; yet for ages after this
discovery of fire, glass and porcelain were unknown till some men of
genius profited by scientific combination often observed but never
applied. It suits the indolence of those minds which never attempt
anything, and w