EPOCH OF THE THEORY OF OXYGEN. 155 



was soon constructed and published by the authors 

 of the theory. Such a nomenclature made its way 

 into general use the more easily, in that the wan^ 

 of such a system had already been severely felt; the 

 names in common use being fantastical, arbitrary, 

 and multiplied beyond measure. The number of 

 known substances had become so great, that a list 

 of names with no regulative principle, founded on 

 accident, caprice and errour, was too cumbrous and 

 inconvenient to be tolerated. Even before the cur- 

 rency which Lavoisier's theory obtained, these evils 

 had led to attempts towards a more convenient set 

 of names. Bergman and Black had constructed 

 such lists; and Guyton de Morveau, a clever and 

 accomplished lawyer of Dijon, had formed a system 

 of nomenclature in 1782, before he had become a 

 convert to Lavoisier's theory, in which task he had 

 been exhorted and encouraged by Bergman and 

 Macquer. In this system 15 , we do not find most of 

 the characters of the method which was afterwards 

 adopted. But a few years later, Lavoisier, De Mor- 

 veau, Berthollet and Fourcroy, associated them- 

 selves for the purpose of producing a nomenclature 

 which should correspond to the new theoretical 

 views. This appeared in 1787, and soon made its 

 way into general use. The main features of this 

 system are, a selection of the simplest radical words, 

 by which substances are designated, and a syste- 

 matic distribution of terminations, to express their 



15 Journal de Physique, 1782, p, 370. 



