96 On the Life and Writings of M. Bertliolkt. [Feb. 



accompanied, as that quality not nnfrequently is, by a proneness 

 in the heat of argument to advance propositions which were not 

 altogether rested on the most solid basis. He remained the 

 most illustrious disciple of the old school, and he pubhshed his 

 Essay with the express view of defending the doctrine of Phlo- 

 giston, after he had superinduced upon it several modifications, 

 which seemed to give it a certain adaptation to the progress of 

 modern science. The refutation of this Essay seemed, there- 

 fore, to the French chemists to be the destruction of the last 

 antagonist worthy of their notice. Bertliollet, accordingly, in 

 conjunction with Lavoisier, Fourcroy, Morveau, and Monge, 

 taking the translation of the Essay, section by section, annexed 

 to it a refutation in which the principles of the old and new 

 schools were sontrasted, and the latter triumphantly established 

 on the ruins of the former. Lavoisier's share was the Introduc- 

 tion and three sections, Berthollet took three sections i;nore, 

 Fourcroy took also three, Morveau two, and Monge one. Never 

 was any refutation more complete ; as indeed Kirwan himself 

 was among the first to admit. 



In respect to the other translation with which Berthollet was 

 connected, the motives which dictated to him the interest he 

 took in the work, were precisely the same, yet his treatment of 

 it, as has been already observed, was the very opposite. Nor 

 indeed could Berthollet at that time have given to the chemists 

 of his country a more acceptable and useful present than was 

 Thomson's System of Chemistry, accompanied by his own notes, 

 and furnished with an Introduction from his own pen. This 

 work, by far the most successful of its kind which had then been 

 attempted, was selected under the circumstances just mentioned 

 by Berthollet, because (as he states in the Introduction), it is 

 unrivalled as a Thesaurus of every known fact of importance 

 connected with chemistry, and as containing the most accurate 

 account of the history of every known substance. Indeed from 

 the extreme regularity and methodical precision characterizing 

 the work, from the cool discrimination with which every subject 

 is weighed and treated of according to its relative importance, 

 and from the accurate historical detail prevaiUng throughout, 

 there is at this moment no system of the science of chemistry in 

 which so complete and extended information on every topic is 

 to be found organized and detailed as in Thomson's Chemistry; 

 which is evident from its having already reached the sixth large 

 impression ; and from its having long ago passed into the labo- 

 ratory of the Frenchman and the German on the continent of 

 Europe, and of the Armenian in Asia; while it has been reprinted 

 for the use of the American student. 



(To he concluded in our next.) 



