NOTES. 481 



there exist positive proofs sufficient to satisfy the polemical 

 writer upon whose paper I have been commenting if he has 

 any mind to see them. Nor do they rest on my assertion, 

 for I never had any intercourse with him except in society. 

 But the pursuits of a philosopher and the life of a recluse, 

 which had so entirely hardened his heart, had not in the 

 least degree impaired his sense of justice ; and my own 

 belief is, that he as entirely supposed himself to have alone 

 made the discovery in question, as Sir Isaac Newton 

 believed himself to be the sole discoverer of the nature of 

 light, and the theory of the solar system. 



Mr. J. Watt and M. Arago may now safely be left to 

 carry on the controversy, whether with the reverend author, 

 or with his able and ingenious, though somewhat over-zealous 

 critic. The subject left in their hands is safe, and the truth 

 is sure to prevail. In these circumstances I am far from 

 feeling any anxiety as to the result, or any desire to anti- 

 cipate the arguments and the statements which must so soon 

 be brought forward. But as I have been freely and most 

 rashly charged with inaccuracy, with inattention to facts, 

 even with having omitted to read the original papers on 

 which the question turns, and charged, in company with my 

 friends M. Arago and Mr. J. Watt, (one of the most careful, 

 laborious, and scrupulously exact of men,) I may simply 

 assert, that as regards myself no imputation can well be 

 more groundless ; for there is not a single one of the whole 

 papers which I have not repeatedly and sedulously examined, 

 both alone and in company with others who took an interest 

 in the controversy. I might add, that never was a charge 

 made with a worse grace than this by the ingenious, and 

 most careless, and very moderately -informed critic who has 

 mixed in the discussion ; for assuredly he has not taken the 

 trouble to read the papers, or to make himself acquainted 

 with the works which every chemist, even every student 

 of chemistry familiarty knows. What shall we say of a 

 writer who undertakes to discuss this question, with no 

 better provision for handling it, than is betokened by his 

 broadly affirming that Mr. Watt himself never preferred 

 the disputed claim, when there exists his own paper of 

 1784 in the ' Philosophical Transactions,' referring to and 

 indeed containing his letter of April, 1783 ? Nay, what 

 9 T 



