LAVOISIER. 315 



company of Mr. Cavendish's having already performed 

 the experiment, and obtained a considerable quantity 

 of water from the combustion of the two gases. He 

 wholly omits the still more material fact, that Sir Charles 

 also stated the conclusion drawn from the experiment 

 in England ; and he omits to mention that he, M. La- 

 voisier, did not believe it possible that nearly the whole 

 of the two airs could be converted into water. This 

 omission of M. Lavoisier is quite unworthy of him. 

 Sir C. Blagden's statement was published in 1784 in the 

 ' Philosophical Transactions;' and though M. Lavoisier 

 constantly wrote papers which were published by the 

 Academy for several years after this statement of Sir 

 Charles in Mr. Cavendish's paper, and though his 

 Memoirs repeatedly touched upon the composition of 

 water, and in one of them he gave it as a truth estab- 

 lished by himself, ('Mem. sur la Decomposition de 

 1'Eau par la Vegetation des Plantes,' 1786,) yet he 

 never gave a word of contradiction to Sir C. Blagden's 

 statement. Indeed, that Sir Charles must, if he related 

 the experiment as M. Lavoisier says he did, have also 

 added the conclusion drawn from it, is quite evident ; 

 he never could have given the one without the other. 

 If the unbelief of M. Lavoisier was not a fact, it was 

 a pure invention of Sir Charles, which not only M. 

 Lavoisier, but M. Laplace, M. Leroy, and others, all 

 present at the time, could at once have contradicted. 

 And here the reader cannot fail to recollect, that a very 

 similar circumstance attended Dr. Priestley's communi- 

 cation of his discovery of oxygen to M. Lavoisier. 

 When the Doctor described the effect of this new gas 

 in enlarging the flame of bodies burnt in it, M. Lavoi- 

 sier expressed his great surprise ; yet he afterwards 

 suppressed all mention of his surprise, and of his hav- 

 ing received the account of the discovery from the 

 real author. In the case of Mr. Cavendish's experi- 

 ment, he admits having been told of it ; and suppresses 

 all mention of the theory having been at the same 



