LAVOISIER. 307 



which he might naturally have brought forward the 

 claim, he at length makes it at an interval of ten years ; 

 but he makes it with an important admission, that 

 Priestley's discovery had been before his own. Yet 

 strange to tell, when he repeats the assertion of 

 "presguen meme terns" in his 'Elemens de Chimie,' 

 he entirely omits this statement of " et meme je crois 

 avant moi." Let us now observe what Dr. Priestley 

 himself states, first remarking that he comes before us 

 without the least unfavourable impression attached to 

 his testimony, while M. Lavoisier's is subject to the 

 weight of the observation already made, and arising 

 entirely from his own conduct. Dr. Priestley, more- 

 over, was a person of the most scrupulous veracity, 

 and wholly incapable of giving any false colouring to 

 the facts which he related respecting his discoveries. 

 Indeed, no man ever showed less vanity respecting his 

 extraordinary services to science. He even frankly 

 and honestly, in the prefaces to his Essays, disclaims 

 much merit that all men would allow him ; and fairly 

 tells how many of the great things which he had done 

 were the suggestions of hazard, and not found out by 

 any preconceived plan for making the discovery. No 

 one, therefore, can possibly be cited whose authority 

 is more unimpeachable in weighing the facts of such a 

 case. The following are his own words in a work 

 published by him, in 1800, upon phlogiston. " The 

 case was this. Having made the discovery (of oxygen) 

 some time before I was in Paris, in the year 1774, I 

 mentioned it at the table of M. Lavoisier, when most 

 of the philosophical people of the city were present, 

 saying, that it was a kind of air in which a candle 

 burnt much better than in common air, but I had not 

 then given it any name. At this all the company, and 

 Mr. and Mrs. Lavoisier as much as any, expressed 

 great surprise. I told them I had gotten it from 

 precipitate per se, and also from red lead. Speaking 

 French very imperfectly, and being little acquainted 



