杏吧原创

The alchemists thought they knew what they were doing鈥攁lthough we may
now think that their targets were chimeras. As the 鈥渁l鈥� gradually faded out to
leave plain chemists, the science became rational. In Laws and Order in
18th-Century Chemistry (Oxford University Press, 拢50, ISBN 0 19 855806 6),
Alastair Duncan traces the development of this process as chemists began to
create models and predictive theories, travelling from acid spirits and
absorbent earth to modern chemistry.