224 Literary and Philosophical Society. 



they have, so much the better. We demand some originality 

 in our days. 



We might say much of William Higgins, but to a 

 chemist one sentence of his is enough, ' We must suppose that 

 the tiltimate particles of light inflammable air require two, 

 or three, or more of dephlogisticated air to saturate them. If 

 this latter were the case, we might produce ^vater in an 

 intermediate state, as well as the vitriolic or nitrous acid, 

 which appears to be impossible ; for in whatever proportion 

 we mix our airs, or under whatever circumstances we com- 

 bine them, the result is invariably the same' 



Higgins wrote on phlogiston a book of about three 

 hundred pages, but there are very few sentences about com- 

 bination and atoms. He does not at first seem to have seen 

 the value of these ideas, or to know that they furnish the 

 beginning of all chemical law. He wished to draw 

 attention to phlogiston, he lost the great truth he had in 

 hand, he used words greater than himself, no one got the 

 atomic theory from his books, and he himself let it lie 

 dead. We must allow that he gave the first clear and 

 satisfactory explanation of saturation. He was an original 

 thinker, but he was one of the many who fell in the breach. 

 Elsewhere the writer has said, ' I look on him as the first 

 man who even in his imagination formed a correct atomic 

 compound and gave a correct analysis, in spite of the 

 thousands of previous speculations and the simplicity of 

 the idea, but one who lost the opportunity of elevating his 

 idea into a great law of nature.' l 



Richter came next with laborious volumes. It is not 

 our intention to discuss them. ' He found that there was a 

 certain quantitative relation between all bodies, and he 



1 A nfangsgriinde der Stochiomttrie, 2 vols. 8vo., 1792-3. 



