Preliminary Discourse

The Hermetic Philosophers differ absolutely from the common Philosophers or Physicists. The latter have no certain system. They invent new ones daily, and the last seems to be conceived only to contradict, and destroy those that have preceded it. Briefly, if one is erected and established, it is upon the ruins of its predecessor, and it will exist only until a new one overthrows it and takes its place 

Michel Maier said on this subject, in an Epigram, found at the beginning of his Treatise, entitled Symbola aurece mensce  

Unum opus ert priscis hcec usque ad tempora seclis 

Prepossessed by these deceitful appearances overwhelmed by subtle writings wearied by the multiplied invectives against Hermetic Alchemy, unknown even to its aggressors, is it surprising that the multitude scorns it  

Thus it is not necessary to lay the blame on Hermetic Chemistry, which is no more responsible than is honesty for knavery. A stream may become foul and ill-smelling from the dirt which it collects in its course, without its source being the less pure, the less beautiful, the less clear. 

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Richard N. Schwab, Translators Introduction to d Alemberts Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopaedia of Diderot, (Indianapolis Bobbs-Merrill, 1963), xi. 

A comment by John Frederick William Herschel in A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy [1830] (New York London Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1966), 305. 

We possess only one later reference by Lavoisier to the affinity tables, viz., in the Traite Mementaire de Chymie (1789). In the Preliminary Discourse, he says ... 

Two years later (1789), Lavoisier published his celebrated Traite Elementaire de Chimie.1B In the preliminary discourse, he states ... 

A Preliminary Discourse Concerning the Origin and Progress of Chemistry (p. 1)... 

Greek, with a preliminary discourse and annotations by Francis Adams. 2 vols., London, Sydenham Society, 1849. 

J. F. W. Herschel a A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Phil-osophy, London, 1831, is worth reading in this connexion. 

Chaptal emphasised the close relation between physics and chemistry in an eloquent and interesting preliminary discourse. He considered that historical treatment of a subject is out of place and only permissible when it affords... 

The Methode de Nomenclature Chimique was the result of eight months of intensive work by Guyton de Morveau, Lavoisier, Berthollet, and Fourcroy, who met almost daily from the middle of 1786 until its publication in 1787 (see VI in list of p. 372). It is based on the earlier work of Guyton de Morveau (see p. 526). The preliminary discourse by Lavoisier (Sur la necessite de reformer et de perfectionner la nomenclature de la chimie) was read to the Academy on 17 April 1787. After mentioning de Morveau s table of 1782 and the Logique de I Abbe de Condillac (1780), Lavoisier explains that ... 

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