Cours de Philosophic

The French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798-1857) was wary of speculations—he did not like ideas with little support from scientific experimentation or observation. In his multivolume work Cours de Philosophic Positive (Course of Positive Philosophy), published in 1830-42, Comte cited an example of a question that he felt would be forever speculative. Because the planets and stars are so distant, Comte believed that people would never gain firm knowledge of the composition of these astronomical objects. Yet only a few years later, scientists learned about spectroscopy and how to determine the elements that compose stars and planets by analyzing emitted or reflected light. Comte s prediction was soon proven untrue. 

Guerlac concluded thus because it seemed implausible that Lavoisier managed his law study, a variety of science lectures and the curriculum in philosophy at the College Mazarin all at the same time. Beretta finds it inconclusive since Lavoisier states in the above quote that he had a bon cours de philosophic Guerlac, A Note, 213 and Marco Beretta, A New Course in Chemistry (Firenze L. S. Olschski, 1994), 14-15. 

Comte A (1830) Cours de philosophic positive. Schleicher, Paris... 

The climax of French iatrochymistry was the work of Nicholas Lemery, whose Cours de chymie of 1675 will be treated in Chapter Three. But two other chymists of the mid-century deserve comment. Le Fevre identified them as The subtil van Helmont, and the laborious Glauber, the two Beacons and Lights which we are to follow in the Theory of Chymistry, and the best practice of it. These two, Johann Glauber and Joan Baptista van Helmont, are significant exceptions to the textbooks tradition of seventeenth century chemistry. Both maintained an extraordinary emphasis on experimental observations, even while returning to mystical philosophical positions. 

---