The opening of Preface
TO THE
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
The first English edition of this work was published in 1891, and that a second edition is now called for is, we think, a sufficient proof that the enthusiasm of the author for his science, and the philosophical method of his teaching, have been duly appreciated by English chemists.
In the scientific work to which Professor Mendeléeff's life has been devoted, his continual endeavour has been to bring the scattered facts of chemistry within the domain of law, and accordingly in his teaching he endeavours to impress upon the student the principles of the science, the generalisations, so far as they have been discovered, under which the facts naturally group themselves.
Of those generalisations the periodic law is perhaps the most important that has been put forward since the establishment of the atomic theory. It is therefore interesting to note that Professor Mendeléeff was led to its discovery in preparing the first Russian edition of this book.