406 Mr. Higgins’s Olservations on Dr. Murray’s Statement 
sive could be accomplished, and that in order to completely de- 
tect the errors of the one doctrine, or to confirm the truth of the 
other, some new mode of investigation must be adopted. During 
this arduous and minute investigation, that system which is now 
called the Atomic Theory gradually started up before me at every 
step I advanced. And by these means my object was so far 
crowned with success, that the delusion of the phlogistic doctrine 
was no longer doubted. Mr. Kirwan, Dr. Black, Mr. Cavendish, 
Dr. Higgins, &c. recanted ; and there was nothing heard of this 
memorable contest, except a few feeble efforts made by Dr. 
Priestley to revive it at its last gasp. During this clashing of 
Opinions it could not be supposed that the refined mode of in- 
vestigation which I invented, should be understood or attended 
to, only so far as related to the grand question of the day; and 
so soon as the controversy ceased, my book, which put an end to 
it, ceased to be interesting, and of course to be read: because the 
public looked for nothing else in the work, from the very tile 
of it, “ Comparative View of the Phlogistic and Anti-phlogistic 
Theories.” 
Notwithstanding the active part I had taken with so much 
“success in this memorable controversy, Dr. Murray never men- 
tioned my name in his historical sketch on the subject, although 
he enumerates the few French chemists who joined Lavoisier in 
defence of his theory. Every liberal-minded man must condemn 
such conduct; for it shows either determined prejudice or a cul- 
pable neglect as an historian*. 
While composing my book I considered myself as writing for 
the next century; for 1 was perfectly aware that the new views 
which I intended to bring forward could not be well understood, 
from the state chemistry was in at the time; as the following 
extract, taken from the Journal de Physique for May 1817, page 
392, describes: “ Here, even Mr. Higgins has proved himself 
to have conceived and developed the base of that theory (the 
Atomic) at a time when chemistry was scarcely emerged from a 
chaotic state, and at the moment when the results of Lavoisier 
had heen still contested by many distinguished philosophers, 
particularly by Mr. Kirwan in England.”—The following is an- 
other extract taken from the same paper: 
“‘ The character of so distinguished a philosopher as Mr. Dal- 
ton will not allow us to suppose that he acted the part of a pla- 
giarist towards Mr. Higgins. Still, however, we must in truth 
say that the work cited of the latter, contains in nearly the same 
expressions the bases and the principal facts which Dalton brings 
forward as the foundation of his ¢heory.” It is remarkable that 
* See his Introduction, page 26, 4th edition, 
a foreigner 
