LAVATKR, JOHN CASPAR. 



LAVOISIER, ANTOINE-LAURKNT. 



landa,' 8 volm. 12iuo. He al*o published a ' Tour round the Coasts of 

 SootUnd,' and a ' MemorUI of the Koyal Progress in Scotland ' in 

 184S, 4to, K-linb., 1848. For the 'Edinburgh Tide*,' conducted by 

 lira. Johnitonr, 8 vols. Kiliub., 1845-46, ho wrote the story of 

 Karqubanon of Inverey,' and ' Donald Lamout, the Braemar Drover.' 

 Sir Thomas Dick Louder married in 1808, and had issue two SODS and 

 wveo daughters. He died Hay 29, 1848, at hi* residence, the Orange, 

 near Edinburgh, and was succeeded by his son, Sir John Dick Lauder, 

 who was born in IMS, and married in 1845. Sir T. D. louder was 

 deputy lieutenant of the counties of Haddington and Klgiu, and a 

 Fellow of the Koyal Society. 



LAVATER, JOHN CASPAR, was born in 1741 at Zurich, where 

 his father was a phynician. The severity of his mother oppressed his 

 youthful mind, and in his juvenile days he was remarkable for a 

 fantaitic solitary disposition, and an aversion to school. lie soon 

 discovered a decided tendency to religion, and in early years lie bad 

 a great predilection for singing hymns and reading the Bible. He 

 made no great progress in philological studies, but bad an aptitude 

 at expressing his thoughts and feelings which admirably qualified him 

 for the office of clergyman. In 1763 he travelled through Leipzig and 

 Berlin in the company of Fuseli, the subsequently celebrated painter, 

 and to Barth in Swedish Pomerania to study theology under the 

 celebrated Spalding. In 1764 he returned to his native town, and 

 occupied himself with his duties as a preacher, with biblical studies, 

 and poetical composition. The poems of Klopstock and Bodmer had 

 produced an effect on his mind, and in 1767 ho published his admired 

 Swiss Songs,' and in the following year hia 'Aussichten in die 

 Ewigkeit ' (' Prospects of Eternity '). 



lu 1769 Lavater was made deacon of the Orphan house church at 

 Zurich, where the extraordinary effect of his sermons, his blameless 

 life, and benevolent disposition made him the idol of his congregation, 

 while bia printed sermons sent forth his fame to distant parts. His 

 'Physiognomic Fragments 'appeared in 1775, in 4 vols. 4to, a work 

 which has since been translated, abridged, and illustrated in every 

 variety of form. In early life he had become acquainted with men 

 of various characters, and had observed corresponding points of 

 resemblance in the character of their mind and their features ; and as 

 he had a disposition to generalise particular observations as much as 

 possible, he endeavoured to raise physiognomy to the rank of a 

 science. He collected likenesses from all parts, made silhouettes of 

 his friends, and the result of this pursuit was the celebrated work 

 above mentioned. It is said that in after-life Lavater had less faith in 

 physiognomy than at first. But whatever may have been the case 

 with regard to his opinions on physiognomy, Lavater always firmly 

 clung to his peculiar religious views, which were a mixture of new 

 interpretations with ancient orthodoxy, and mystical even to super- 

 stition. One leading article of his faith was a belief in the sensible 

 manifestation of supernatural powers. His disposition to give credence 

 to the miraculous led bun to believe the strange pretensions of many 

 individuals, such as the power to exorcise devils, to perform cures by 

 animal magnetism, Ac. Some even suspected him of lioman Catho- 

 licism. Thus while his mystical tendency rendered him on object of 

 ridicule to the party called the enlightened (Aufgekliirte), the favour 

 he showed to many new institutions offended the religionists of the 

 old school. However, many of the religious world, even of those not 

 immediately belonging to hie congregation, regarded Lavater with 

 great veneration, and, opening a correspondence with him, looked to 

 his letters as the great source of their spiritual consolation. 



In the hitter years of Lavater his writings were less esteemed ; his 

 poems were compared with those of more recent German writers, and 

 lost by the comparison ; while a free- thinking spirit was on the increase, 

 which checked sympathy with his warm religious feelings. The begin- 

 ning of the French Revolution Lavater regarded with pleasure ; but 

 hia love changed to horror after the decapitation of the king. On 

 the appearance of the revolution in Switzerland, he mounted the 

 pulpit with the greatest zeal, and there, as well as in all public assem- 

 blies, declaimed against the French party with the utmost fervour 

 and courage. When, on the 26th of September 1799 Mosscna took 

 Zurich, Lavater, who was busied in the streets exciting the soldiery 

 and aiding the sufferers, was shot by a grenadier. It is said that this 

 grenadier was not one of the enemy, and that the act was that of an 

 assassin , and it is further supposed that Lavater knew the man, but 

 from a Christian spirit of forgiveness never betrayed him. He suffered 

 a long time from this wound, but did not die till the beginning of ItiOl. 

 During his illness he wrote some papers on the times and some poems, 

 which are considered to be amom; his best productions. 



LAVOISIER, ANT01NE-LAURENT, an eminent chemical philo- 

 sopher, was born at Paris on the 16th of August 1743. His father, 

 who was opulent, spared no expense in his education, in which he 

 acquired at the College Mazarin a profound knowledge of astronomy, 

 mathematics, botany, and chemistry. After some hesitation as to 

 what particular science he should more particularly dedicate himself, 

 he was determined in the choice of chemistry by the brilliant dis- 

 coveries with which Dr. Black and others bad then recently enriched 

 that science. When only twenty-one years of age he obtained the 

 prize offered by the government for the best essay on lighting the 

 street* of Paris ; and it is stated, that in order to enable himself to 

 judge of the intensity of the light afforded by lamp*, he kept himself 



during six weeks in a room from which the light of day was entirely 

 excluded. In 1763 he was admitted an associate of the French 

 Academy, and finding that he incurred considerable excuse in the 

 prosecution of hit chemical researches, he asked, and in 1769 obtained, 

 the appointment of one of the farmers-general of the revenue, and 

 his purse and hia laboratory were equally open to the young inquirers 

 in science. He was afterwards appointed to superintend the- numerous 

 aalt|>etre-works of France. 



During the reign of terror Lavoisier was accused of having, as a 

 farmer-general, mixed water and noxious ingredient! with tobacco : 

 to avoid arrest he secreted himself for some days ; but hearing that 

 his colleagues, and among them his father-in-law, were imprisoned, ho 

 voluntarily surrendered himself, and was condemned to death. In 

 answer to a request for a respite of some days, in order to finish some 

 experiments with which ho had been recently engaged, and which he 

 stated were of importance to the interests of mankind, he was coldly 

 informed by the public accuser that the republic had no n 

 chemists, and that the court of justice could not be delayed. Deeply 

 regretted by every man of science and by the numerous fii' mln 

 whom bia amiable manners had attached to him, he was consigned to 

 the guillotine on the 8th of May 1794, leaving a widow, who many 

 years afterwards was married to Count Rumford. 



Hia publications were numerous and highly important ; for besides 

 the larger works which we shall presently mention, he was the uutlir 

 of nearly sixty memoirs printed in the ' Memoirs ' of the Academy, 

 and other periodicals. His principal separate works are : ' Opu-cule* 

 Chimiques et Physiques,' 2 vols. 8vo, 1775 ; ' Trait(5 Elementaire de 

 Chimie,' 2 vols. Svo, 1789 ; ' Instructions sur les Nitrierea, et sur la 

 Fabrication de Salpctre,' Svo, 1777. 



In a posthumous and incomplete publication, consisting of two 

 octavo volumes, entitled ' Mdmoires de Chimie,' Lavoisier, alluding 

 to the term commonly employed of the ' French theory,' chums it 

 entirely and exclusively as his own ; and although it will be impossible 

 for us to enter minutely into a consideration of the Lavoisieran or 

 antiphlogistic theory, yet we shall state, from his ' Eldmens de Chiuiiu,' 

 his peculiar views on some important subjects, and one of the first of 

 these is the nature of heat. Having mentioned its expansive and 

 repulsive powers, he says that " it is difficult to comprehend these 

 phenomena without admitting them as the effects of a real am) mate- 

 rial substance, or very subtile fluid, which insinuating itself between 

 the particles of bodies separates them from each other." lie admits 

 that the doctrine is hypothetical, but asserts that it explains the phe- 

 nomena of nature in a satisfactory manner, and that considering it 

 as the cause of heat, or the sensation of warmth, he at first gave it 

 the name of ' igneous fluid,' and ' matter of heat,' but afterwards, in a 

 work on chemical nomenclature by himself, Morveau, aud Berthollet, 

 he adds, " We have distinguished the cause of heat, or that exqui- 

 sitely elastic fluid which produces it, by the term of caloric, without 

 being obliged to suppose it to be a real substance, but as the repulsive 

 cause which separates the particles of matter from each other." 

 ' Free ' caloric he defines to be that which is not united iu any way 

 with any other body; 'combined' caloric is that which is fixed iu 

 bodies by affinity or elective attraction, so as to form part of the 

 substance of the body ; and by 'specific ' caloric of bodies he under- 

 stands the respective quantities of caloric requisite for raising a 

 number of bodies of the same weight to an equal temperature, and the 

 proportional quantity depends on the ' capacity ' of bodies for caloric. 



His analysis of atmospheric air and the re-combination of its 

 elements, though not quite correct, was nevertheless ably conceived 

 and executed. He heated some mercury in a mattrass connected with 

 a glass receiver with about fifty cubic inches of atmospheric air; 

 he then found that a portion of the mercury was converted into 

 small red particles, which did not increase after the heat hud been 

 continued for twelve days ; aud he then observed that only about 

 forty-two of the fifty cubic inches of atmospheric air remained 

 unabsorbed, and this he found was no longer fit for respiration or 

 combustion. On submitting the red particles of mercury to heat, 

 they were separated into mercury and about eight inches of gas, which 

 eminently supported both respiration and combustion ; aud having 

 several times repeated the experiment, he mixed the residual uuab- 

 sorbed portion of the air with that which was obtained by heating 

 the red particles of mercury, and he found that air was reproduced 

 precisely similar to that of the atmosphere, and possessing nearly the 

 same power of supporting respiration and combustion. Lavoisier 

 admits that the experiment does not show the exact quantity of the 

 two airs which constitute the atmosphere, for he states that the 

 mercury wih 1 not separate the whole of the respirable ^portion, and 

 consequently part of it remains " united to the mephitis." 



Lavoisier also mentions some experiments which be performed with 

 this highly respirable air thus obtained by the intervention of mercury 

 from the atmosphere, and he notices the brilliant effects of the com- 

 bustion of charcoal and phosphorus, and adds, " This species of air 

 was discovered almost at the same time by Dr. Priestley, M. Scheele, 

 and myself. Dr. Priestley gave it the name of 'dephlogisticated air;' 

 M. Schecle called it ' empyreal air ; ' I at first named it ' highly 

 respirable air,' to which has since been substituted the term of ' vital 

 -ir.' " 



It ia greatly to be regretted that so eminent a philosopher should 



