Dr. Kane's Notice on the Theory of the Others. 167 



chand gave Berzelius the materials : I am sure, if neither 

 Berzelius nor myself had in that year proposed the theory, 

 Liebig or somebody else would have done it in the next ; sci- 

 ence was ripe for it, and it could not have been left undone. 



Since the proposition of the theory by Berzelius and my- 

 self, the field has been left in Liebig's possession almost com- 

 pletely ; he has fully established the superiority of the ethyl 

 theory over the old views of Dumas and Boullay, and has 

 shown that in the present state of science it alone fulfils the 

 conditions of a sufficient theory. But what is the present 

 state of science? I believed in the sufficiency of the ammo- 

 nium theory three years ago, and proposed the ethyl theory 

 after its model. I have satisfied myself that we can have in the 

 present state of science a theory still better than the ammo- 

 nium one of Berzelius for the compounds of ammonia, and 

 I hope that science will advance so rapidly as to render very 

 soon the ethyl theory insufficient ; and I have myself only 

 refrained from a full examination of the aethereal compounds 

 with reference to applying to them the principles of my theory 

 of ammonia, because I am anxious to devote more time to a 

 subject of so much importance than I have at present at my 

 own disposal. I have already written to Professor Liebig, 

 and he has printed a i&vf words on the change which my 

 views of ammonia may make in the theory of the others, and 

 I shall proceed to their development as soon as ever I can 

 find time. 



" Theory of the JEthers*^. 



'^ Dumas and Boullay had determined that in the agthers 

 the carburetted hydrogen might be regarded as a base similar 

 to ammonia ; they even contrasted in a table its properties to 

 those of ammonia, and showed that in all the important cha- 

 racteristics it was equally marked, and that but for the acci- 

 dental circumstance of its insolubility in water, its alkaline 

 nature should have been long since recognised. Having de- 

 voted some attention to the ammonium theory of Berzelius, in 

 which he regards an atom of hydrogen as converting the am- 

 monia into a substance possessing many properties in com- 

 mon with the metals, I was induced to try whether the same 

 simplicity of arrangement and classification which was given 

 to the ammonia compounds by that hypothesis, could not be 

 affiarded to the different combinations of the aethers by the 

 assumption of similar principles. Let us consider the base 



* Dublin Journal of Medical and Chemical Science, vol. ii. p. 348. 



