EARLY LIFE. 77 



gard it at all ; indeed he was singularly exempt from 

 either vanity or ambition, and only cared for the 

 progress of science, by whomsoever it was assisted, 

 though regarding as essential to that progress the 

 due ascertainment and positive declaration of each 

 person's merits. I have heard him with astonish- 

 ment, in bearing testimony to the great merits of 

 Lavoisier, both as a great discoverer and generaliser 

 of facts observed by others, and bestowing praise 

 unstinted upon his works, without even making the 

 least allusion to the entire suppression in them of all 

 reference to his name as founder of the new school 

 of chemistry, by the discovery of latent heat and 

 permanently elastic fluids; and this after he had 

 received, years before, letters in which Lavoisier 

 expresses his " zealous admiration of the profound 

 genius and discoveries which had made such revolu- 

 tions in science ;" and the year after, "that he had 

 for a long time been accustomed to regard him as his 

 master, and only lamented not having been able to 

 convey his admiration in person, and rank himself 

 among his disciples." When Black saw that the 

 discovery of latent heat was distinctly claimed as 

 Lavoisier's own, after it had for twenty years been 

 described in the Professor's lectures, and been re- 

 cognised all over Europe as his discovery, he was 

 not a little surprised at the conduct of his corre- 

 spondent. These strange proceedings of Lavoisier 

 were, as we learn from Professor Eobison, only 

 treated with a silent contempt expressed for the 



