70 
FIRST REPORT— 1831 . 
Davy; la Klaproth et Berzelius.” (Cours de THistoire de la 
Philosophic, tom. i. p. 25.) 
It is to be lamented that so enlightened a writer as Victor 
Cousin, yielding, in this instance, to the seduction of national 
vanity, should have advanced pretensions in behalf of his 
countrymen, which have no foundation in truth or justice. 
Nothing can be more absurd or unprofitable than to claim 
honours in science, either for individuals or for nations, the 
title to which may be at once set aside by an appeal to public 
and authentic records. 
It was in England, not in France, that the first decided ad¬ 
vances were made in our knowledge of elastic fluids. To say 
nothing of anterior writers, Dr. Black had traced the causticity 
acquired by alkalies, and by certain earths, to their being freed 
from combination with fixed air ; and Mr. Cavendish, in 1766, 
had enlarged our knowledge of that gas and of inflammable air. 
In England, the value of these discoveries was fully appreciated; 
in France, little or no attention was paid to them, till the philo¬ 
sophers of that country were roused by the striking phenomena 
exhibited by the experiments of Priestley. Lavoisier, it is true, 
had been led, by an examination of evidence derived from pre¬ 
vious writers, to discard the hypothesis of phlogiston. The 
discovery of oxygen gas by Dr. Priestley not only completed 
the demonstration of its fallacy, but served as the corner-stone 
of a more sound and consistent theory. By a series of researches 
executed at great expense, and with consummate skill, the 
French philosopher verified in some cases, and corrected in 
others, the results of his predecessors, and added new and im¬ 
portant observations of his own. Upon these, united, he founded 
that beautiful system of general laws, chiefly relating to the 
absorption of oxygen by combustible bodies, and to the con¬ 
stitution of acids, to which, alone, the epithet of the Antiphlo¬ 
gistic or French theory of chemistry is properly applied. Of 
the genius manifested in the construction of that system, and 
the taste apparent in its exposition, it is scarcely possible to 
speak with too much praise. But it is inverting the order of 
time to assert, that it had any share in giving origin to the re¬ 
searches of Priestley, which were not only anterior to the 
French theory, but were carried on under the influence of 
precisely opposite views. This, too, may be asserted of the 
discoveries of Scheele, who, at the same period with Dr. Priest¬ 
ley, was following, in a distant part of Europe, a scarcely less 
illustrious career. 
It is the natural progress of most generalizations in science, 
that at first too hasty and comprehensive, they require to be 
