M. Hess on the Scientific Labours o^ Richter. 85 



The third volume (1793) is wholly devoted to a critical ex- 

 amination of Lavoisier's antiphlogistic system. Up to that 

 time Richter had only known it by very insufficient extracts. 

 But in 1792 appeared a German translation of Lavoisier's 

 treatise on chemistry, by Girtanner. Richter obtained and 

 read it, and was convinced of the truths of the new system. 

 Yet indulgent towards others and a stranger to the spirit of 

 party, he excuses those who refuse to admit it. " For," he 

 says, " in the ancient system, metals and sulphurs were con- 

 sidered as compound bodies, earths and acids as simple bodies; 

 in the new system it is just the contrary : now imagine a man 

 whom you would persuade that all he sees he sees reversed, 

 and then condemn him for his incredulity. But, neverthe- 

 less, an error does not become a truth should it even count 

 myriads of ancestors." 



Do not suppose however that Richter, upon embracing the 

 new system openly, abandons himself to it without criticism. 

 No. No one to my knowledge has better perceived what there 

 was good in the fundamental principle of the phlogistic system. 

 We must not expect that a system which served, for nearly 

 a century, as a starting-point for the numerous investigations 

 of chemists, that a system which could rally round it all 

 facts, should be entirely illusive. " All the facts on which 

 the partisans of the antiphlogistic system rest," says Richter, 

 " are not only insufficient for the refutation of the reality of 

 phlogiston; but on the contrary, they do but rectify our 

 ideas with regard to it and render its existence more evi- 

 dent ; for example, when we assert that phosphoric acid is 

 composed of phosphorus and oxygen, this conclusion has no 

 foundation, since in reality no other conclusion can be drawn 

 from the experiment, except that this acid is composed of the 

 radical of phosphorus and of oxygen. Not any induction can 

 be drawn respecting the nature of this radical itself, for it is only 

 known as combined with oxygen or with phlogiston (Brenn- 

 stoff). ; which, however, does not prevent us from indicating 

 the relative quantity of the elements, since, for us, the weight of 

 phlogiston, like that of heat, is an infinitely small quantity." 

 Such was the capacity of Richter's mind, that in the midst of the 

 lively contention of two parties who do not agree, he quietly 

 examines the question, seizes the literally palpable truths of 

 the new school, and yet does not abandon the more abstract, 

 more hidden but not less real truths of the old system. Per- 

 haps Richter had a model, but then this model was Lavoisier, 

 and no other. But it is certain that at the present time, this 

 manner of viewing the subject is banished from all works which 

 treat of this science, and that it is after a lapse of forty years 



