TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 59 



discussion ; it is ripe, if ever a question was, for detailed and practical settlement. 

 There must be within this Association, there must be within this room, men 

 qualified in all respects to appreciate the nature of our difBculties, to formulate 

 rules for our guidance, to press our pecuniary needs on those who are for a time 

 the bm-sars of our educational endowments, to watch and influence the action of 

 the Universities, as on other points, so especially in the projected 'Leaving Exa- 

 minations.' To them I confidently appeal. I appeal on behalf of coimtless schools, 

 which, ready to admit reform, are helpless to initiate it. I appeal on behalf of those 

 few schools which have initiated it, and are endeavouring courageously and honestly, 

 but with little of useful concert, with much of wasted force, to work it out. Let it 

 once be announced to the educational communit}' that a committee of distinguished 

 men, having at heart not merely scientific interests, but the interests of the Uni- 

 versities and the Schools, has been armed by this Association to counsel and to assist, 

 to recommend and to accredit, to harmonize and to combine, to become, in short, 

 the recognized representatives and controllers of scientific education, and they will 

 not lack grateful clients, or attain inadequate results. If science is to flourish in 

 the land, preliminary knowledge and training, bestowed with care upon our boy- 

 hood, must I'^ave our manhood free for original researcli. If our English educa- 

 tion is to be abreast of continental teaching, one half of our mental faculties 

 must no longer be suftered to lie dormant. To have removed this great reproach, 

 and to have helped this great reform, will be an achievement worthy to take high 

 rank even amongst those splendid services to science and to the community which 

 give lustre to the British Association." 



CHEMISTET. 



Address hy Professor Andrews, F.R.S. L. <Sf E., President of the Section. 



Amidst the vicissitudes to which scientific theories are liable, it was scarcely to 

 be expected that the discarded theory of Phlogiston should be resuscitated in our 

 day and connected with one of the most important generalizations of modern 

 science. The phlogistic theory, elaborated uearlj^ two hundred years ago by 

 Beecher and Stahl, was not, it now appears, wholly founded in error ; on the con- 

 trary, it was an imperfect anticipation of the great principle of energy, which 

 ?lays so important a part in physical and chemical changes. The disciple of 

 'hlogiston, ignorant of the whole history of chemical combination, connected, it 

 is ti'ue, his phlogiston with one only of the combining bodies, instead of recog- 

 nizing that it is eliminated by the minor of all. " There can be no doubt," says 

 Dr. Crum Brown, who first suggested this view, " that potential energy is what 

 the chemists of the 17th century meant when they spoke of phloo-iston." " Phlo- 

 giston and latent heat," playfidly remarks Volhard, " which formerly opposed each 

 other in so hot a combat, have entered into a peaceful compact ; and, to banish all 

 recollection of their former strife, have assumed in common the new name of 

 energy." But, as Dr. Odling well remarks, "in interpreting the phlogistic writino-s 

 hj the light of modern doctrine, we are not to attribute to their authors the pre- 

 cise notion of energy which now prevails. It is only contended that the phlogis- 

 tians had in their time possession of a real truth in nature, which, altogether lost 

 sight of in the intermediate period, has since crystallized out in a definite form." 



But whatever may be the true value of the Stahlian views, there can be no 

 doubt that the discoveries which have shed so bright a lustre round the name of 

 Black mark an epoch in the histoiy of science, and gave a mighty impulse to 

 human progress. A recent attempt to ignore the labours of Black and his great 

 contemporaries, and to attribute the foundation of modern chemistry to Lavoisier 

 alone, has already been amply refuted in an able inaugural addi-ess delivered a 

 short time ago from the Chair formerly occupied by Black. The statements of 

 Dr. Crum Bro\vn may, indeed, be confirmed on the authority of Lavoisier himself. 

 Through the kindness of Dr, Black's representatives I have been permitted to 



