Dr. Kane on the Compounds of Ammonia. 61 



PART III. 



ON THE THEORY OF THE AMMONIACAL COMBINATIONS. 



On the accession to science of any considerable body of new facts, we should 

 carefully examine how far they tend to modify our ideas of the nature and inti- 

 mate structure of the bodies to which they relate, and of the forces to the action 

 of which these bodies are subjected, and by remodelling our views in accordance 

 with the ideas thus obtained, we should endeavour after a closer approximation 

 to that truth, the attainment of which is the object of all scientific labour. 



A body, possessing so many interesting properties as ammonia, standing as it 

 were, on the confines of mineral and of organic chemistry, and forming the con- 

 necting link between them, must even, on its own account, and still more from 

 the remarkable variety of classes of combinations into which it enters, occupy a 

 prominent place in the general theory of chemistry, and the grounds of any pro- 

 posed alteration in our views concerning it should be examined with the attention 

 due to the Importance of the subject. I shall therefore lay before chemists, for 

 discussion, some views of its nature and laws of combination, differing in many 

 important particulars from those hitherto received, which have been suggested to 

 me by the researches on the various classes of compounds of ammonia contained 

 in the present and former papers. These views are connected in a very remark- 

 able manner with those concerning which the opinions of chemists have been so 

 long divided ; it will be seen, in fact, that the principles of the theory which I 

 propose, embrace all that was vital in former hypotheses ; and it may be almost 

 considered as an argument for its sufficiency, if not actual truth, that in the de- 

 velopment of these views is exemplified the ordinary course of advancing know- 

 ledge, when the once conflicting elements of rival theories are found forced into 

 coalition by the grasp of some generalization of a higher order. 



Before commencing the explanation of my own views, I shall briefly describe 

 the essential principles of the previous theories of ammonia. 



A. — The oldest view : 

 1. That ammonia NH3 is an independant base, saturating acids and forming 



salts. 



