The Romance of Chemistry, ca. 1817

I'm reading The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes, about science in the Romantic period, 1780 to 1820 or so. It's quite interesting, if slow in parts. From it I extract this, which is from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, an account of a chemistry lecture that inspired the hero:

"The ancient teachers of this science," said he, "promised impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted, and that the elixir of life is a chimera. But these philosophers, whose hands seem only to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of Nature, and show how she works in her hiding places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited Powers: then can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadow."