110| Chemical Philosophy, [Chap. II. 



lished a new table of symbols and chemical cha- 

 racters, by Messrs. Hassenfratz and Adet, formed 

 upon the principles of the proposed system, and 

 fitted to illustrate the learned labours of their 

 countrymen, which it accompanied. This table is 

 generally supposed to contain many improvements 

 on those of GeoiiVoy, Bergman, and Culien. 



To give in detail a distinct account of all the 

 changes included in this new plan, would far ex- 

 ceed the limits prescribed to the present sketch. 

 The following brief statement may suffice. Stahl 

 and his followers had ahvays supposed the metals 

 to be compound substances, made up of a certain 

 calx or earth, and phlogiston; but the new theo- 

 rists, believing that there was no proof of such 

 composition, set them down in their tables as 

 simple bodies. The advocates for the former hypo- 

 thesis had long contended that sulphur, pjhosphoriis„ 

 azotic air, and various other substances of a like 

 kind, were also compounds ; whereas the believers 

 in the new system took for granted that such conv- 

 position could not be proved. In the old doc- 

 trine, zvatej' was placed among the simple bodies; 

 but by the experiments of Cavendish and others,, 

 it was thought sufficient evidence had been given, 

 that it is a compound substance. According to 

 the former theory, the acid principle was consi- 

 dered as a compound of earth and water; the only 

 radical acid in nature was supposed to be the 



tlon, this is scarcely ascribing too much to Lavoisier ; for though- 

 many of the leading experiments on which the theory is founded 

 were made by others, yet the task of digesting, arranj^ing, and com- 

 bining the whole into a consistent and regular system, was prin- 

 cipal ]y performed by hixn. 



