It was a great achievement of the early chemists — with the crude experimental techniques available also with the ever-astonishing power of human reason (as potent then as now) — to discover this reduction of the world to its components, the chemical elements. Such reduction does not destroy its charm but adds understanding to sensation, and this understanding only deepens our delight.
About This Quote
About Peter Atkins
Peter Atkins was a contemporary English chemist and author. Peter William Atkins is an English chemist and a Fellow of Lincoln College at the University of Oxford. He retired in 2007. Read more on Wikipedia →