Imperfect: last leaf mutilated with slight loss of text.
"I propose ... to confine myself to a cursory detail of the state of the science [chemistry], as it has existed at different periods, and to conclude with a view of the philosophy of the present age." - p. 7.
Also published in the New England journal of medicine and surgery, v. 6, Jan. 1817, p. 1-14, under title: Address delivered on the induction of John Gorham, M. D., as Erving professor of chemistry in Harvard University, December 1816.