Biographical Memoir of Dr Priestley. 219 



In this respect, he may therefore with propriety be consider- 

 ed as one of the fathers of modern chemistiy, and his fame be 

 very justly associated with that of the authors of the celebrated 

 revolution effected by it in human knowledge. 



But he was a father who would never own his child. His 

 obstinacy in maintaining his first ideas was of the most deter- 

 mined character. He saw without being moved their ablest de- 

 fenders pass in succession to the opposite side ; and when Mr 

 Kirwan had, almost the last of all, abjured the phlogistic sys- 

 tem, Priestley, left alone on the field of battle, issued a new de- 

 fiance, in a memoir addressed to the principal French chemists. 



By a fortunate chance the challenge was accepted at the mo- 

 ment, and on the very spot. M. Adet, then ambassador from 

 France to the United States, happened also to be a worthy re- 

 presentative of the French chemistry, and replied to the new 

 arguments brought forward against it. They almost all arose 

 from the circumstance that Priestley, ingenious and skilled as 

 he was in the processes of that transcendent chemistry of which 

 he was the founder, had little experience in those of the com- 

 mon chemistry. He extracted, for example, from fixed air, sub- 

 stances into which he did not suppose it to have entered, and 

 from this denied that it always owes its origin to carbon. When 

 he formed water with oxygen and hydrogen, he always found a 

 little nitric acid, and would not attend to the portion of azote 

 which produced it *. 



On the Phlogistication of the Spirit of Nitre. lb. 1789. 



On the Transmission of Acid Vapours through tubes of red earth, and on 

 Phlogiston. lb. 



On the Generation of Air by Water, and the Decomposition of Dephlo- 

 gisticated and Inflammable Air. lb. 1793. 



His Experiments on the Analysis of Atmospheric Air ; and 



Considerations regarding the doctrine of Phlogiston and the Decomposi- 

 tion of Water. 2 vols. 8vo, 1796 and 1797- 



The doctrine of ^Phlogiston established, and that of the Composition of 

 Water refuted. 8vo, 1800. 



The same ideas have also been expressed bj him, under somewhat diffe- 

 rent titles, in the Memoirs of the American Society, vols. iv. and v. 



Reply to Cruickshanks's observations in defence of the new system of che- 

 mistry. Nicholson's Journal, vol. iv. p. 1. 



He also published a multitude of articles in various other journals. 



* Reflexion sur la Doctrine du Phlogistique, et de la Decomposition de 

 TEau ; traduit de 1' Anglais, et suivi d'une response par M. Adet. 1798, 8vo. 



