404 
having united, into one single body, all 
these insulated rays that constitutes the 
indisputable glury of Lavoisier. Before 
his time, the particular phenomena of 
chemistry might be compared to.a spe- 
cies of labyrinth, the deep and winding 
walks of which had nearly all been tra- 
versed by many laborious men; but their 
points ef union, their connexion with 
each other, and with the whole, could be 
perceived only by the man of genius, 
eapable of soaring above the edifice, and 
seizing the plan with.the eye of an 
eagle. 
Europe, at that time, witnessed’ an 
-affecting spectacle, of which the history 
of the sciences furnishes very few exam. 
ples; the most eminent French chemists, 
the contemporaries of Lavoisier, those 
who were best entitled to consider them- 
selves as his rivals, and particularly M. M. 
Fourcroy, Berthollet, and Guyton, can- 
didly ranged themselves under his ban- 
ners, loudly proclaimed his doctrine in 
their books, and in their chairs, laboured ° 
with him ia extending it to all the plie- 
nomena, and inculcating it in the minds 
of al} men. : 
Tt was by this noble conduct, as much 
as by the importance of their private dis- 
covertes, that they deserved to parti- 
cipate in the glory of that fortunate man 
of genius; and gave to the new theory, 
the name of French chemistry, under 
which it is now adopted by all Europe. 
One of the means which contributed 
the most powerfully to its rapid success, 
as the nomenclature created by this 
society of French chemists. [In substi- 
tuting for barbarous, or mysterious 
terms, invented in times of ignorance, 
names expressive of the species, and 
proportion of the elements of each sub- 
stance ;, they presented to the mind a 
summary of the results of the science, 
and furnished the memory with the 
means of recalling by the names, the 
nature itself of the objects. The new 
nomenclature is not an instrument for 
discovery, it is only the expression of 
discoveries made; but it is just to ac- 
knowledge in it an excellent instrument 
for instruction, and as such, it must be 
allowed to have diffused the science, and 
o have had great influence on the par- 
ticular discoveries, of which we have 
hext to treat. 
They occupy too much of our report, 
to enable us even to enumerate them in 
this abstract; almost all the substances 
in nature have been examined; almost 
all the combinations imaginabie have 
Progress of the Sciences since 1789. 
[ Nov. J 9 
been attempted by chemists; the num- 
ber of the metals has been increased to 
twenty-eight; that of earths, to nine ; 
new acids have been discovered, or 
formed ; the composition of the different 
salts has been determined ; several have 
been compounded, and are of great use 
to the arts; modes have been discovered 
of extracting from all the combinations, 
the elements necessary to be kept apart. 
The names of Berthollet, Fourcroy, 
Vauquelin, Chaptal, Guyton, Deyeux, 
Thenard, amongst the French; those of 
Klaproth, Kirwan, Davy, ‘Tennant, 
Wollaston, amongst foreigners; cover the 
pages of the catalogue, which we have 
prepared of all these important labours. 
Amongst the number are some, the 
genus of which belongs exclusively to the 
present epoch; such are those, having 
for their objects the products of orga- 
nized bodies, the history of which pre- 
sents particularly the names of Fourcroy 
and Vauguelin, long united both by 
science and by friendship. 
At present we know, thanks to the 
long researches of these learned che- 
mists, and to those of some of their com- 
petitors, that all these products of life are 
the different productions of a small num- 
ber of substances ; of carbon, of hydro- 
gen, with more or less of azote. These 
are their fundamental materials; a little 
earth, some atoms of sulphur, and phos- 
phorus, are joined to this principal stock : 
all these elements seem to sport in their 
various reactions; they unite, separate, 
meet again, m a thousand ways, in our 
laboratories, as in the functions of life; 
and chemistry itself is become capable 
of transforming the greater part of them 
at will, some into others, by slight mo- 
difications, or by various kinds of fere 
mentations. It iseasy to conceive, what 
light these analyses of animal and ve- 
getable substances have -thrown on the 
arts which employ them; and what uti- 
lity may be derived from these meta- 
morphoses of commen matenals into 
rare and precious ones; but from all 
these facts arises a result still more im- 
portant, which leads us toa general the- 
ory of organized beings, by shewing us 
the essence itself of life, m a perpetual 
change of proportion between sub- 
stances themselves very few in number. 
Having thus brought the history of 
chemistry as far as its most complicated » 
and profound doctrines, we proceed to 
the second part of oar report; the object 
- of whichis, to represent the progress and 
state of natural history; a s@lence of 
which 
