222 Literary and Philosophical Society. 



of our minds are too small to retain more than the lives 

 of a few of the most eminent. 



' The doctrine of reciprocal proportion must be taken 

 from him, and he can now no longer hold a place in the 

 history of the atomic theory other than as the author of 

 an intelligent attempt which has entirely failed. 



' I feel sorry to leave him in this state, and a few kind 

 words will do little good. I believe he would have pre- 

 ferred the truth ; the honour he received was not required 

 by him ; the discovery was not claimed by him, he died in 

 1793, before it was known to be worth making. In his 

 works he appears an honest, earnest man.' 



Is this a fair summary after actually giving specimens 

 of the neutral decomposition of salts ? These specimens 

 occur as examples in the ' application of the doctrine/ but 

 the doctrine is not quite expressive of these applications, 

 and on the whole we cannot do better even now than come 

 to the conclusion that Wenzel never expressed clearly the 

 law of reciprocal proportion. We must not, however, forget 

 an important sentence in his favour on the fourth page 

 of his book. The translation has been given, p. 214. It 

 may be well to give the original : 



2. Dass eine jede Verbindung der Korper, eine 

 bestimmte und unveranderlich bleibende Abmessung haben 

 muss, die ohne ausserlich mitwirkende Ursachen weder 

 grosser noch geringer werden, weil sonst auch nichts 

 gewisses aus ihrer Vergleichung bestimmt werden konnte, 

 ist schon an sich klar. Es folgt daher nothwendig, dass 

 eine jede mogliche Verbindung zweier Korper mit jeder 

 andern bestandig in dem genauesten Verhaltniss stehet, 

 und dieses Verhaltniss driickt den Grad der Verbindung 

 aus.' 



