EPOCH OF THE THEORY OF OXYGEN. 151 



veau, Fourcroy, and Monge, were the authors of 

 this curious specimen of scientific polemics. It is 

 also remarkable evidence of the candour of Kirwan, 

 that notwithstanding the prominent part he had 

 taken in the controversy, he allowed himself at last 

 to be convinced. After a struggle of ten years, he 

 wrote 10 to Berthollet in 1796, "I lay down my 

 arms, and abandon the cause of phlogiston." Black 

 followed the same course. Priestley alone, of all 

 the chemists of great name, would never assent to 

 the new doctrines, though his own discoveries had 

 contributed so much to their establishment. "He 

 saw," says Cuvier 11 , "without flinching, the most 

 skilful defenders of the ancient theory go over to 

 the enemy in succession; and when Kirwan had, 

 almost the last of all, abjured phlogiston, Priestley 

 remained alone on the field of battle, and threw 

 out a new challenge, in a memoir addressed to the 

 principal French chemists." It happened, curiously 

 enough, that the challenge was accepted, and the 

 arguments answered by M. Adet, who was at that 

 time (1798,) the French ambassador to the United 

 States, in which country Priestley's work was pub- 

 lished. Even in Germany, the birth-place and home 

 of the phlogistic theory, the struggle was not long 

 protracted. There was, indeed, a controversy, the 

 older philosophers being, as usual, the defenders of 

 the established doctrines; but in 1792, Klaproth 



10 Pref. to Fourcroy 's Chemistry, xiv. 



11 Cuvier, Eloge de Priestley, p. 208. 



