Dr. Hare on the Chemical Nomenclature of Berzelius. 251 
and all other ‘haloid salts,’ and thus overset the basis of dis- 
tinction between ‘halogene’ and ‘amphigene’ elements. More- 
over, while thus excluding from the class of salts, substances 
which the mass of mankind will still consider as belonging to it, 
we assemble under one name, combinations opposite in their 
properties, and destitute of the qualities usually deemed indispen- 
sable to the class. ‘Thus, under the definition that every com- 
pound of an acid and a base, is a salt, we must attach this name 
to marble, gypsum, feldspar, glass and porcelain, incommon with 
Glauber’s salt, Epsom salt, vitriolated tartar, pearlash, &c. But 
admitting that these objections are not sufficient to demonstrate 
the absurdity of defining a salt as a compound of an acid and a 
base, of what use could such a definition be, when, as I have pre- 
mised, it is quite uncertain what is an acid or what is a base. 
To the word acid different meanings have been attached at 
different periods. The original characteristic sourness, is no 
longer deemed essential. Nor is the effect upon vegetable colors, 
treated as an indispensable characteristic ; and, as respects obvi- 
ous properties, can there be a greater discordancy, than that 
which exists between sulphuric acid and rock crystal; between 
vinegar and tannin; or between the volatile odoriferous liquid 
poison, which we call prussic acid, and the inodorous concrete 
material for candles, called margaric acid ? 
“ While an acid is defined to be a compound capable of forming 
a salt with a base, a base is defined to be a compound that will 
form a salt with anacid. Yet a salt is to be recognized as such, 
by being a compound of the acid and the base, of which, as I have 
Stated, it is made an essential mean of recognition.” 
On reperusing the passages which I have thus annexed, you 
will perceive, that I have treated as absurd the idea of restricting 
our conception of a salt to a compound formed of an amphide 
acid and an amphide base, and that I have denounced that of 
depriving the chloride of sodium of its appropriate name, and 
eliminating from the class of salts compounds analogous to this 
chloride in composition and properties. 
In the following paragraphs, taken from my “ E’ffort to refute 
the arguments advanced in favor of the existence, in amphide 
Salts, of a compound radical like cyanogen,” I have objected 
to the employment of the word salt as a corner-stone of any 
Scientific superstructure. “27. J¢ much surprises me, that 
