^^ Inquin) into the Nature of Simple Bodies.** 117 



thus adopting the mode of reasoning, not certainly the best, 

 but the most available in the absence of experimental proof, 

 of assuming the premises, and proving or disproving them by 

 the results arrived at. To this end I take a review of the 

 fifty-five bodies termed simple, endeavouring to trace their 

 relations with one another, and with the bodies which we have 

 determined by experiment to be compound. 



But one or all of the three assumed roots, namely hydrogen, 

 carbon and oxygen, may be compound. I first make the sup- 

 position that one of them is compound, namely oxygen, be- 

 cause while the atomic weight of oxygen allows us to suppose 

 that the other bodies may be resolved into it, the atomic 

 weight of these other bodies does not allow us to suppose them 

 resolvable into oxygen. This hypothesis, like the first, is to 

 be tested by the results arrived at. Sir Humphry Davy was 

 led, though by a different train of reasoning, to a very similar 

 conclusion. He supposed that all the simple bodies might be 

 resolvable into two, hydrogen and some unknown base : this 

 base my argument leads me to infer is carbon. 



But hydrogen and carbon may one or both be compound. 

 I endeavour to show that in this case we must derive these 

 bodies from molecules higher in the ascending order than 

 those of known forms of matter, leading to a conclusion in ac- 

 cordance with a doctrine favoured by many eminent metaphy- 

 sicians regarding the nature of matter. It was merely neces- 

 sary to reach this stage of generalization without following it 

 to its results, because the only proposition that I had to esta- 

 blish was, that the undecocnposed bodies of chemistry were 

 not simple but compound, and in no sense distinct in their 

 molecular constitution from the bodies which experiment had 

 proved to be compound. 



Your kindness will excuse me for entering into these details. 

 I merely wish to explain to you that the subject falls fairly 

 within the range of free discussion, and that my argument, 

 whether well or ill conducted, is a simple and natural one; 

 and from the work itself, if you will take the trouble to peruse 

 it, you will judge how far the opprobrious epithets applied to 

 me personally are justified, either by the subject of my in- 

 quiry, or the manner of treating it. 



I am accused of ignorance of facts, of never having made a 

 chemical experiment, of impertinence, of stating what is mon- 

 strous, and of "passing the sentence of banishment," to use 

 the writer's own words, against the opinion of Sir Humphry 

 Davy on the subject of chemical elements, and so forth ; and 

 the writer winds up by expressing his " strongest and well- 

 grounded hope " that he will never look upon the like of me 



