THE PATH OF EVOLUTION 



is in part consumed ; the constituents of which must 

 be restored later by the nourishment taken. He 

 agreed with Boyle that only the substances capable 

 of demonstration, and that could not be further sepa- 

 rated into their own constituents, should be considered 

 as elementary. To Lavoisier is also due, in common 

 with Guy ton de Morveau,* the establishment of the 

 new chemical nomenclature. It replaced the strange 

 and often absurd names inherited generally from the 

 language of Alchemy, by a clear, simple and distinc- 

 tive terminology, that usually carried its definition in 

 its name. 



In 1789 appeared Lavoisier's "Traite-Elementaire 

 de Chimie," in which the new views of the science were 

 set forth in the most admirable and convincing manner. 

 The plates explaining the apparatus he had contrived 

 for his experiments were drawn and engraved by his 

 Wife, who, Cuvier states, " had understood and sec- 

 onded him in his labors, and whose precious qualities 

 were the charm of his life." 



Lavoisier commenced in 1793 to gather together 

 his memoirs, which were scattered through the records 

 of the Academic for over twenty years, and to arrange 

 them consecutively, according to the nature of his 

 discoveries. Four of the volumes were each partly 



* 1737-1816. The discoverer of the destruction of Typhus Fever, 

 of Jail fever germs, by sulphur and chlorine fumigation. 



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