LAVOISIER 7 



of fossilized people who are too lazy to work themselves, 

 and who try to suppress the capacity of work in others." 1 



How few think justly of the thinking few ! 

 How many never think who think they do. 



In his Traite de Chimie Lavoisier described more 

 fully the formation of oxides, and the phenomenon of 

 combustion; and he proved (1777-78) that the calces of 

 lead, tin, and mercury are oxides of these metals. But 

 the phlogistic theory was still held by many honoured 

 workers in chemistry, and they believed that in Caven- 

 dish's inflammable air (hydrogen) was the long-cherished, 

 but undiscovered, phlogiston. Concerning the solution 

 of metals in muriatic or vitriolic acid with the evolution 

 of inflammable air, these phlogistonists stated that the 

 metals lose phlogiston by the process, and that a calx 

 is a metal minus phlogiston or "metallic spirit"! 



The quantitative work of Lavoisier, his weighing and 

 measuring, and the philosophical deductions of his experi- 

 ments, completely shattered the theory of phlogiston a 

 theory which prevented the advance of science and proved 

 to be a false doctrine, which unfortunately lasted nearly 



1 Quoted from a letter to the author. 



It will be remembered that the late Prof. Hughes was turned from pub- 

 lishing a paper on wireless telegraphy by the unfortunate criticism of the 

 late Sir George Gabriel Stokes, who, with others, failed to appreciate it. 

 One sees now what a discovery Hughes had made, and how it was lost to 

 the world by the mighty authority, if not the intellectual pride, of a dis- 

 tinguished physicist ! Was it jealousy or prejudice, or both ? Sometimes 

 old men are jealous of the work of younger men (e.g., Davy of Faraday) ! 



