\ 



Dr. Kane's Notice on the Theory of the JEthers. 165 



In place of entering afresh into the discussion of priority, 

 I would ask the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine to 

 print the following quotation, from the Dublin Journal of Me- 

 dical and Chemical Science, vol. ii. p. 34S. January 1833. 

 My claim will then go before the chemical world, which it 

 has never yet done ; it can be judged of fairly, and I shall be 

 quite satisfied to abide by their decision ; but my disavowing 

 the discovery of what Liebig himself calls one of the most 

 important theories in chemistry, when I believe the fiicts to 

 be most positively on my side, would certainly be much less 

 honourable than the course which Liebig blames me for 

 having adopted. 



The idea of Dumas and Boullay to which Liebig alludes, 

 was simply that aether itself might be looked upon as a base. 

 So may the vegetable alkalies : but neither Liebig nor any 

 other chemist would think of generalizing the ethyl theory, 

 and, in the present state of science, considering morphia, 

 strychnia, quinia, &c. as oxides of peculiar radicals. Con- 

 sequently Dumas's idea did not contain even the germ of the 

 ethyl theory ; whilst I brought forward that theory more 

 completely formed, even than Berzelius did. No person can 

 respect more profoundly the extent and accuracy of view 

 which has throughout his long; career so much distintruished 

 the Swedish chemist than I do ; I seek not to diminish his merit 

 in proposing, nor that of Liebig in improving, the theory 

 which is now made the subject of dispute. I never called in 

 question or ever doubted of the perfect originality and inde- 

 pendence of his views ; but that the theory was oi'iginal with 

 me, that in time my memoir preceded that of Berzelius, and 

 that my views were the same as those now held by Liebig and 

 Berzelius, are matters of fact which I could not disavow with- 

 out being guilty of a falsehood. 



Liebig's remark, that during the battle I have kept in the 

 rearmost ranks, requires from me a few words of explanation. 

 In the first place, I have no abstract love for fighting, parti- 

 cularly when it must be amongst friends, who, whatever they 

 may become less, are never more friendly after than they were 

 before it. My memoirs were published ; I left them to sink 

 or swim, the opinions to be adopted or not, accordingly as 

 time and examination should test their value. Perhaps I was 

 wrong in not making more noise about my theory, but at that 

 time my speculations about the aethers were as regularly a 

 subject of amusement and ridicule among the chemical circles 

 in Dublin as my analyses of white precipitate were a year or 

 two ago, and as my theory of the ammoniacal combinations 

 is now ; so I contented myself with setting uiy litde skiff afloat 



