380 
M. Fischer’s Memoir of the Life of Klaproth. 
tained the end proposed by them. It would not be difficult to 
explain the causes of this. They are to be found partly in some 
unfavourable accidents,— partly in certain peculiarities of the age, 
which are not very propitious to deep scientific study. But 
a more detailed explanation of these circumstances is foreign to 
the purpose of this memoir. The author contents himself, there- 
fore, with adding, that, without making any pretensions to the 
gift of prophecy, he may venture to assert, that, sooner or later, 
the sound principles of Berthollet must be had recourse to, if ever 
chemistry is to be placed on a more scientific foundation. 
Even at an advanced period of life, Klaproth changed his ear- 
ly views in regard to many objects, as, for instance, with respect 
to the problematical body, named Muriatic Acid ; with respect 
to the impossibility of decomposing the alkalies and earths, and 
several other points ; and by these changes of opinion, he shew- 
ed, that even advanced years had not deprived him of the 
power of being struck by new views and ideas. 
With so many distinguished scientific claims, it is not to be 
wondered, that all the learned societies in Europe, whose object 
was in any way connected with physical science, should have 
reckoned it an honour to have the name of so illustrious a man 
in the list of their members. Beside the two Academies of 
Science and of Arts in Berlin, he was also a member of the Acade- 
mies of Paris, London, Petersburg, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and 
Munich, and of many associations of learned men at Edinburgh, 
Berlin, Paris, Moscow, Brussels, Erfurt, Halle, Erlangen, Jena, 
Potsdam, Leipsic, Hamm, Rostock, and other places. Among 
his papers, there was found, after his death, not less than thirty 
diplomas from learned societies ; and the king (of Prussia) add- 
ed to these honours, in the year 1811, the order of the Red 
Eagle of the Third Class. 
The State, too, in acknowledgment of Klaproth’s merits, re- 
warded his industry in a variety of ways. So far back as the 
year 1782, he had been Assessor in the Supreme College of 
Medicine and of Health, which then existed ; at a more recent pe- 
riod, he enjoyed the same rank in the Supreme Council of Me- 
dicine and of Health ; and when this College was subverted in 
1810, he became a member of the Medical Deputation attached to 
