14 Mr. Colqukoun on the Life and Writings [Jan. 



tor intended according to his varying whim; now as a compli- 

 ment to heaven, and now as a mark of regard for aught that 

 struck his fancy in or upon the earth. Nay it would seem that 

 some men of veiy perverse inchnation endeavoured by the name 

 to mislead and deceive the uninitiated as to the thing ; — as it is 

 difficult in any other way to account for a fact such as that three 

 most deadly poisons, the acetate of lead, the chloride of anti- 

 mony, and the chloride of arsenic respectively, should have been 

 styled the sngar of lead, and the butter of antimony and of 

 arsenic. In fine, system was unknown, — there was no co-ope- 

 ration, but each in his turn, in this important work, invented for 

 himself; and the greater part of the names thus bestowed have 

 no reference to the subject designated, and are totally indepen- 

 dent of methodical arrangement. 



That after the total revolution which the science had under- 

 gone, it could continue much longer to be tolerated, was impos- 

 sible ; and so early as 1782, Guyton, the last of the great French 

 chemists who acceded to the new doctrines, was nevertheless 

 the first to furnish a memoir to the Academy proposing a new 

 chemical nomenclature. So soon, therefore, as he became a 

 convert to the new theory, the four leading chemists in France 

 set about providing for the exigencies of the science, by furnish- 

 ing it with anew methodical nomenclature. 



The first principle in planning the new nomenclature was to 

 connect the words with the things they were intended to repre- 

 sent, as is shown in the only words they truly invented, oxygen, 

 hydrogen, and azote ; — the next was so to methodize them, as 

 to present a connected view of the chemical facts then known, 

 at the same time endeavouring to provide for the future exten- 

 sion of the science. The roots of new denominations employed 

 to express bodies of recent discovery were drawn from the 

 Greek language, partly to avoid entirely any connexion with the 

 barbarous system previously used, and partly because this mode 

 afforded a facility of expressing a compound substance by an 

 easy compound name, at the same time that, by varying the 

 termination, it was easy to mark the different states of the sub- 

 stance so compounded. Thus these terminations are the same 

 in analogous substances, and to name them conveys at once the 

 nature of the composition to which each is appropriated ; and 

 by this method there was introduced the greatest precision and 

 accuracy into the whole science, in which system immediately 

 took the place of chaos. 



Of the great benefits conferred by this new nomenclature on 

 chemistry, it is impossible to doubt; and of the philosophical 

 views on which it Avas constructed and arranged, the success 

 with which for many years it adapted itself perfectly to every 

 improvement in the science, is sufficient evidence. Indeed, it 



