There are not wanting, even to-day, chemists who advocate "purely chemical" methods in chemistry, and cannot appreciate the value of physical evidenc… - J. R. Partington

From the time when Guldberg and Waage gave quantitative form to the speculations of the physicist Berthollet, a clear conception of chemical equilibrium, in sharp contrast to an anthropomorphic theory of affinity dating back to Hippocrates and Barchausen, has yielded rich and abundant fruit.

The fundamental materials from which we construct our picture of the universe may appear in different shapes, but there is really very little discontinuity between what seem at first sight very different views.

The Chinese early learned to work in metals; bronze occurs in the 11th-10th centuries B.C., useful iron from about 500 B.C. At a later period they made brass... True porcelain was first made about A.D. 600. They were probably in possession of mercury at an early date, and learnt how to decompose cinnabar into mercury and sulphur, and recompose it from these materials.