HISTORY OF THE ATOMIC THEOEY. 2 1 3 



left unascertained ; as the expression of a law it is Richter's, 

 but as a fact regarding neutral salts the author appears not 

 to be known. 



Among the many disputes on this point it is rather surprising 

 that.people should speak without reading the authors they 

 discuss. The supporters of Wenzel have not read him, the 

 supporters of Richter have overlooked his own writings and 

 his own confession, as it appears to me in the preface. But 

 as I give the words every one may judge for himself. 



In proceeding with his inquiry one cannot but admire the 

 energy and activity of Richter's mind, and his enthusiastic 

 desire to prove the beauty of the arrangement of creation ; it 

 is clear that he lost his way, and spent the greatest part of his 

 energy on a subject which could not with his data lead to 

 great results, and which even now gives us no help, and 

 which was not the next step wanted in chemistry. The 

 science was straining after definite laws, it had none ; 

 Richter, with his one great law, might have done wonders, 

 had he only seen its value; he might have found on ex- 

 amination that it was, properly speaking, an inference from 

 another much more general law, and would have then ex- 

 pressed himself in universal terms. But Higgins had 

 expressed himself much more clearly as to combination be- 

 fore him, as already shewn, and only failed because he had 

 not seen it to be a general law. 



Richter attempted to give the proportion of the acids to 

 bases as an expression of affinity, but this had been already 

 attempted by Kirwan, and was shewn to be unsuccessful. 



As a general summary of Richter*s most important work, 

 we may say, he found that there was a certain quantitative 

 relation between all bodies, and he made out the laws so far, 

 that when he knew the quantitative analysis of a salt, he 

 could tell its quantitative decomposition with another, but 

 he never saw it with sufficient clearness to be able to express 

 the combining quantities each by its own distinct number, 



