Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Iv. (191 1), No. 2*4. 9 



dieted, until the order of natural things assume a different 

 aspect." " 



The strain of thought here is exalted enough to raise 

 a smile, and, moreover, to prove the high value that 

 Higgins set on his speculations. Elsewhere he stated that 

 he taught the atomic theory in his lectures at the Royal 

 Dublin Society. " What is called the atomic theory formed 

 a part of my annual course of lectures."'^ 



Higgins thus exemplifies "faith without works." He 

 had splendid ideas which he did not work out. More 

 than one writer commented on this. Wollaston remarked 

 that " he appears not to have taken much pains to ascer- 

 tain the actual prevalence of that law of multiple propor- 

 tions by which the atomic theory is best supported." '^ 

 Davy, in his obituary notice of Higgins, passed a very 

 severe judgment upon him :".... it is impossible not to 

 regret that he did not establish principles which belong to 

 the highest department of chemistry, and that he suffered 

 so fertile and promising a field of science to be entirely 

 cultivated by others ; for though possessed of great means 

 of improving chemistry, he did little or nothing during 

 the last thirty years of his life."" 



William Higgins (saving his indebtedness to Bryan 

 Higgins) stands in much the same relation to the chemical 

 atomic theory as J. A. R. Newlands to the periodic system 

 of the elements. Newlands foreshadowed the periodic 

 system in its most important features. Althc ugh his 

 ideas were scouted by the officials of the Chemical Society 

 of London, he adhered to them, and was enabled to publish 



^^ "An Essay on the Theory of Bleaching," 1799, p. xx. 



1- F/u/. Mag., 1 819, 53, 405. 



^"^ Phil. Trans., 1814, p. 5. 



1 * Davy's Works, 7, 75. 



