152" Mr. CAvenpIsH’s Experiments on Air. 
“ciple, without! the help of phlogifton ; and indeed, as adding 
dephlogifticated air to a body‘comes’to the fame thing as de-' 
priving it of its phlogifton and adding water to it, and as there 
are, perhaps, no bodies entirely deftitute of water, and as I 
know no way by which phlogilton can be transferred from one 
body to another, ‘without leaving it uncertain whether water - 
is not at the famé time transferred, it will be very difficult to 
determine by experiment which of thefe opinions is the trueft 
but as the commonly received principle of phlogifton explains 
all phenomena, at leaft as well as Mr. Lavorster’s, I have 
adhered to that. There is one circumftance alfo, which though ° 
it may appear to many not to have much force, I own has fome: 
weight with me; it is, that as plants feem to draw their nou- 
rifhment almoft intirely from water and fixed and phlogifticated 
air, and are reftored back to thofe fubftances by burning, it 
feems reafonable to conclude, that notwithftanding their infi- 
nite variety they confift almoft intirely of various combinations 
of water and fixed and phlogifticated air, united according to one 
of thefe opinions to phlogifton, and deprived according to the 
other of dephlogifticated air; fo that, according to. the latter 
opinion, the fubftance of a plant is lefs compounded than a - 
mixture of thofe bodies into which it is refolved by burning; _ 
and it is more reafonable to look for great variety in the more 
compound than in the more fimple fubftance. 
Another thing which Mr. Lavoisier endeavours to prove is, 
that dephlogifticated air is the acidifying principle. From what 
has been explained it appears, that thisis no more than faying, 
that acids lofe their acidity by uniting to phlogifton, which with ° 
regard to the nitrous, vitriolic, phofphoric, and arfenical acids 
is certainly true.. The fame thing, I believe, may be faid of 
the acid of fugar; and Mr. Lavoisier’s experiment is a 
{trong 
