182 MEMOIR OF DR. DALTON, AND 



Higgins wrote on phlogiston, his chief object being con- 

 nected with it. In an octavo volume of above 300 pages 

 these are nearly all the extracts relating to this subject. We 

 find, then, that he did not establish a law in connection with 

 these ideas. We must conclude, then, that he did not see 

 their importance, that he did not see their application. Not 

 only so, but being lost amongst so much material, we do not 

 find that they were so written as to draw any attention, nor 

 does he seem to have wished to do so. He wished to draw 

 attention to what was in reality of less importance, his objec- 

 tions to phlogiston. The magic sword that would have slain 

 all his enemies he threw away as some common truncheon. 

 The magic lamp that would have given brilliance to him and 

 to science, was found, after some years, rotting in his cellar. 

 As regards the effect his book had on his cotemporaries. Dr. 

 Thomson, of Glasgow, is the best authority. We see from 

 him that no idea of an atomic theory was got from Higgins. 

 His opinions were given and received as a speculation more 

 than as expressing a fact or a law. 



He says in his Annals of Philosophy, May, 1814, Vol. III., 

 p. 331, "I have certainly afl&rmed that the atomic theory 

 was not established in Mr. Higgins's book. And here is my 

 reason. I have had that book in my possession since the year 

 1798, and had perused it carefully; yet I did not find any- 

 thing in it which had suggested to me the atomic theory. 

 That a small hint would have been sufficient T think pretty 

 clear from this, that I was forcibly struck with Mr. Dal ton's 

 statements in 1804, though it did not fill half an octavo page; 

 so much so, indeed, that I afterwards published an account of 

 it ; and I still consider myself as the first person who gave 

 the world an outline of the Daltonian theory." 



This is put too strongly. Had Dr. Thomson paid as 

 much attention to Higgins's book as to the remarks of 

 Dalton, he would certainly have made a great advance on 



