on the Dii^^'ery-^mB'^ifipiMnof W^M^» ^h 



to d^tide whether we tieVfei* tedd his article, and ai^e t'h^more 

 ignorant of his opinion*'^ '(W''h{lVing read it, did not understand 

 »it; or both read and understood it, biit purposely misrepre- 

 isented it. He inclines to the last view. We bei? to assure Sir 

 EtetW'Bfewster that we spent several days in studying his 

 •nrticlfe, and made ourselves master of his views. We fear, 

 however, that he laid down our review too speedily on coming 

 to the passage which offended him. Whether so or not, if he 

 will now do us the justice to peruse it, he will find that, hold- 

 ing the views which we distinctly stated we did, we could 

 'fiot but consider Watt as having received the "lion's share" 

 in Sir David Brewster's division of the merit between him and 

 Cavendish. In so doing, however, we did not call in ques- 

 tion the perfect honesty and sincerity of Sir David's opinions. 

 -According to Sir David Brewster, "The great merits of 

 ithese two great men are fortunately not in collision. Mr. 

 !W"att will for ever enjoy the honour of that singular sagacity 

 ■which presented to him the hypothesis of the composition of 

 water ; and Cavendish will never lose the glory which belongs 

 to him of having given that hypothesis^ ^whether he was cognizant 

 of it or ?iot, the force and stability of truth.''- — Edinburgh Re- 

 view, No. 142, p. 4-96. -^^'^^'^t' '^''''^' "■' '-'"''^'^ ^:^i^?;^aiiq Jd; '•: 

 t According to our vie\^''¥nU9it^%ir^^'^toinf filkftn'fidl^^ 

 it, this mode of stating the question robs Cavendish of halt^ 

 and that the best half, of his merit. The conviction that water 

 is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen, we believe to have 

 been an inference on the part both of Cavendish and of Watt. 

 The former inferred it from his own experiments, the latter 

 flom Priestley's repetition of those of Cavendish. For Caven- 

 dish we claim the merit both of making the necessary experi- 

 ments and of understanding and explaining their meaning. 

 According to Sir David Brewster, Watt showed what the 

 meaning of the Experiments would be, and Cavendish made 

 them. To us, the man who explains the nature 6f a phaeno- 

 menon appears much more praiseworthy than he who merely 

 observes it. We accordingly think that Watt gets the lion's 

 share of merit, if he be counted the interpreter, whilst Caven- 

 dish is reputed only the observer of the phsenomena in ques- 

 tion. We did not, however, cast any moral censure on Sir 

 David Brewster for holding his view, nor did we misrepre- 

 sent his opinions. He accuses us of mistaking his estimation 

 of merit, taking for granted that we accept his standard of ex- 

 cellence, whereas, like all other critics, we were stating our 

 view of it according to our otaw standard of merit^^ Jafi<i%hat 

 that was we stated distinctly. ■ Mi:,\'\no-n aiu 



