Heads of lectures on a course of experimental philosophy, particularly including chemistry, delivered at the new college in Hackney / by Joseph Priestley.

  • Priestley, Joseph, 1733-1804.
Date:
Printed for Wm. Jones, no. 86, Dame-Street, and J. Rice, no. 2, College-Green,
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Heads of lectures on a course of experimental philosophy, particularly including chemistry, delivered at the new college in Hackney / by Joseph Priestley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    quick-lime, and by the addition of wa- ter ard fand, make mortar. It is by obfervation alfo that we difcover that flones and other heavy bodies fall to the ground, and that a magnet will attradl iron. In other words, experimental phiiofophyis an inveftigation ofthewif- dom of God in the works and the laws of nature, fo that it is one of the great- eft objeds to the mind of man, and opens a field of inquiry which has no bounds; every advance v^e make fug- gefting new doubts and fubjeds of far- ther inquiry. The uniformity we difcover in the properties of natural fubftances enables us to lay down general rules, or princi- ples, which, being invariable, we call the laws of nature; and by our know- ledge of thefe laws we are able to pre- did, and at our own pleafure to pro- duce, particular refults, and this is the fource of all the powers of man. It is the diredion we acquire of the powers of nature \ fo that, as Lord Bacon obferv- €d, knowledge is fowsr^ All