, light, and
electricity, he ought to have a general knowledge of mechanics,
hydrodynamics, pneumatics, optics, and electricity. Latin and Greek
among the dead and French among the modern languages are necessary, and,
as the most important after French, German and Italian. In natural
history and in literature what belongs to a liberal education, such as
that of our universities, is all that is required; indeed, a young man
who has performed the ordinary course of college studies which are
supposed fitted for common life and for refined society, has all the
preliminary knowledge necessary to commence the study of chemistry. The
apparatus essential to the modern chemical philosopher is much less bulky
and expensive than that used by the ancients. An air pump, an electrical
machine, a voltaic battery (all of which may be upon a small scale), a
blow-pipe apparatus, a bellows and forge, a mercurial and water-gas
apparatus, cups and basins of platinum and glass, and the common reagents
of chemistry, are what are required. All the implements absolutely
necessary may be carried in a small trunk, and some of the best and most
refined researches of modern chemists have been made by means of an
apparatus which might with ease be contained in a small travelling
carriage, and the expense of which is only a few pounds. The facility
with which chemical inquiries are carried on, and the simplicity of the
apparatus, offer additional reasons, to those I have already given, for
the pursuit of this science. It is not injurious to the health; the
modern chemist is not like the ancient one, who passed the greater part
of his time exposed to the heat and smoke of a furnace and the
unwholesome vapours of acids and alkalies and other menstrua, of which,
for a single experiment, he consumed several pounds. His processes may
be carried on in the drawing-room, and some of them are no less beautiful
in appearance than satisfactory in their results. It was said, by an
author belonging to the last century, of alchemy, "that its beginning was
deceit, its progress labour, and its end beggary." It may be said of
modern chemistry, that its beginning is pleasure, its progress knowledge,
and its objects truth and utility. I have spoken of the scientific
attainments necessary for the chemical philosopher; I will say a few
words of the intellectual qualities necessary for discovery or for the
advancement of the science. Amongst them patience, indus