1822.] Sixth Edition of his Sj/sfem of Chemistry, 259 



sagacity of Davy. This I have stated in my System in the very 

 strongest terms, and have given Davy all that credit to which^ 

 in my opinion, he is fully entitled. 



But 1 must now draw the reader's attention to another parti- 

 cular, because it shows that this malignant writer was conscious 

 of the inaccuracy and falsehood of his statements, and that he 

 drew them up with no other view than to make up the appearance 

 of a case, byjumbling together the most monstrous and incon- 

 sistent falsehoods. In my account of the Improvements in 

 Physical Science during the Year 1815, inserted in the first 

 number of the seventh volume of the Annals of Philosophy , I 

 notice (p. 27) the efforts of the French chemists to deprive 

 Davy of the honour of this discovery, and show their futility and 

 absurdity. These remarks are terminated by the following 

 observations : " If Gay-Lussac always maintained it, as he 

 informs us, but was prevented from publicly embracing it by the 

 authority of Berthollet, we may pity his pusillanimity, but can- 

 not on that account admit his claim as the first propagator of a 

 theory which he publicly opposed.^' (P. 28.) The commentary 

 on this passage by the Reviewer is as follows : ^' Since that 

 period, however. Dr. Thomson has set up as the autocrat of 

 chemistry, assigning to each of his contemporaries the rank he 

 ought to occupy with despotic decision. Of Gay-Lussac he 

 says, 'we may pity his pusillanimity.'" — (Review, p. 123.) 

 Had the Reviewer quoted the passage fairly, the absurdity of 

 this tirade would not only liave been obvious to every reader ; 

 but it would have appeared (contrary to his assertions) that, 

 so far from having attempted to deprive Davy of the ho- 

 nour of being the author of the modern theory respecting 

 muriatic acid and chlorine, I have done him the most ample 

 justice. 



6. I am accused of having perverted Davy's account of chlo- 

 riodic acid to suit my own atomic notions. — (Review, p. 142.) 



I request the reader to peruse my account of this substance 

 in vol. i. p. 194, of the System of Chemistry. If I have not 

 stated Davy's experiments without any perversion, I am no 

 judge of what perversion means. 



7. But one of the most curious, as well as uncandid, attacks 

 upon me by the Reviewer is contained in his observations 

 respecting the composition of phosphoric acid. The passage 

 is too long to quote it here : I must, therefore, refer the 

 reader to it in pages 147 and 148 of the Review. I have 

 already, in various articles in the Annals of Philosophy, given 

 an historical sketch of the facts respecting the discovery of the 

 composition of phosphoric acid ; but in order to show the reader 

 the malignity as well as falsehood of the Reviewer's account, I 

 must give a short vievv of these facts here. 



The first attempt to determine the constituents of phosphoric 



s2 



