Note 3 — PRINCIPLES OF CHEMISTRY INTRODUCTION

All those events which are accomplished by substances in time are termed ‘phenomena.’ Phenomena in themselves form the fundamental subject of the study of physics. Motion is the primary and most generally understood form of phenomenon, and therefore we endeavour to reason about other phenomena as clearly as when dealing with motion. For this reason mechanics, which treats of motion, forms the fundamental science of natural philosophy, and all other sciences endeavour to reduce the phenomena with which they are concerned to mechanical principles. Astronomy was the first to take to this path of reasoning, and succeeded in many cases in reducing astronomical to purely mechanical phenomena. Chemistry and physics, physiology and biology are proceeding in the same direction. One of the most important questions of all natural science, and one which has been handed down from the philosophers of classic times, is, whether the comprehension of all that is visible can be reduced to motion? Its participation in all, from the ‘fixed’ stars to the most minute parts of the coldest bodies (Dewar, in 1894 showed that many substances cooled to -180° fluoresce more strongly than at the ordinary temperature; i.e. that there is a motion in them which produces light) must now be recognised as undoubtable from direct experiment and observation, but it does not follow from this that by motion alone can all be explained. This follows, however, from the fact that we cannot apprehend motion otherwise than by recognising matter in a state of motion. If light and electricity be understood as particular forms of motion, then we must inevitably recognise the existence of a peculiar luminiferous (universal) ether as a material, transmitting this form of motion. And so, under the present state of knowledge, it is inevitably necessary to recognise the particular categories, motion and matter, and as chemistry is more closely concerned with the various forms of the latter, it should, together with mechanics or the study of motion, lie at the basis of natural science.