268 LAVOISIER. 



From the accurate detail into which I have entered of 

 Lavoisier's history, no difficulty remains in forming an 

 estimate of his merits as a great teacher of science. He 

 possessed the happiest powers of generalizing, and of 

 applying them to the facts which others had discovered, 

 often making important additions to those facts; always, 

 where any link was wanting to connect them, either 

 together or with his conclusions, supplying that link by 

 judiciously-contrived experiments of his own. He may 

 most justly be said to have made some of the most 

 important discoveries in modern times, and to have left 

 the science of chemistry with its bounds extended very 

 far beyond those within which he had found it confined 

 when his researches began. 



It is, however, fit that we make the important dis- 

 tinction between the two classes of his theories: those 

 which, being founded upon a rigorous induction, and not 

 pushed beyond the legitimate conclusions from certain 

 facts, stand as truths to this day, and in all probability 

 will ever retain their place; and those which, carried 

 incautiously or daringly beyond the proper bounds of 

 him who is only naturae minister et interpres, have 

 already been overthrown never, indeed, having reposed 

 upon solid foundations. 



1. Of the first class is his important doctrine of cal- 

 cination justly termed by him, oxidation, by which 

 he overthrew the leading doctrine of Stahl, and shewed 

 that metals do not part with anything in passing from 

 the reguline state, but, on the contrary, absorb and fix a 

 gas proved by other philosophers to be oxygen gas. 

 This, his capital discovery, stands, and in all probability 

 will ever stand, the test of every inquiry. We know of 



