CAVENDISH. 439 



of Watt's reasoning, while all admit that his expe- 

 rimentum crucis was of the greatest value in com- 

 pleting the foundation on which Watt's happy infer- 

 ence had been built. Lavoisier's attempt to intrude 

 himself was wholly unsuccessful ; it had no effect 

 whatever except to tarnish his reputation, already 

 injured sufficiently by his similar attempt to share in the 

 discovery of oxygen. All men held Cavendish's name 

 as enrolled among the greatest discoverers of any age, 

 and only lamented that he did not pursue his brilliant 

 career with more activity, so as to augment still farther 

 the debt of gratitude under which he had laid the 

 scientific world. 



The reader, especially the French reader, must not 

 suppose that any prejudice respecting Lavoisier has 

 dictated the remarks occasionally made in the course of 

 this work upon his pretensions as a discoverer. It is 

 scarcely possible to estimate too highly the services 

 which he rendered to chemical science by his labours. 

 The truly philosophic spirit which guided his researches 

 had not been found to prevail much before his time in 

 the speculations of chemists. He had a most happy 

 facility in reducing the knowledge of scattered and 

 isolated facts to a system. His talent for generalization 

 has not often been surpassed ; and it led him, together 

 with his admirable freedom from preconceived preju- 

 dice, and his resolute boldness of investigation in 

 unfrequented paths, to make some of the most felicitous 

 inductions, well deserving the title of discoveries, that 

 have ever been made, although the materials of his 

 inferences were obtained from the experiments and 

 observations of his predecessors, and his own experi- 



