Bacon, Lord Verulam, as early as the commencement of the 17th century, had pointed out the importance of chemical investigations, and had predicted the immense advantages which would result from the science, when it came to be properly cultivated and extended; but he did not himself attempt either to construct a theory of chemistry, or even to extend it beyond the bounds which it had reached before he began to write. Neither did Boyle, notwithstanding the importance of his investigations, and his comparative freedom from the prejudices of the alchymists, attempt any thing like a theory of chemistry; though the observations which he made in his Sceptical Chemist, had considerable effect in overturning, or at least in hastening the downfall of the absurd chemical opinions which at that time prevailed, and the puerile hypotheses respecting the animal functions, and the pathology and treatment of diseases founded on these opinions. The first person who can with propriety be said to have attempted to construct a theory of chemistry, was Beccher. John Joachim Beccher, one of the most extraordinary men of the age in which he lived, was born at Spires, in Germany, in the year 1635. His father, as Beccher himself informs us, was a very learned Lutheran preacher. As he lost his father when he was very young, and as that part of Germany where he lived had been ruined by the thirty years’ war, his family was reduced to great poverty. However, his passion for information was so great, that he contrived to educate himself by studying what books he could procure, and in this way acquired a great deal of knowledge. Afterwards he travelled through the greatest part of Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Holland.