vum sulphur verum arte producendi," in which he establishes what may be called the permanency of chemical substance—that metallic lead is reproducible from the ashes of lead, sulphur verum from the acid of sulphur. And, whether or not taking note of the oxidations and deoxidations effected, how little differently, even at the present day, would the actions referred to be described and explained! Is it not our habit to say that charcoal and sulphur and lead are bodies possessing potential chemical energy—that is, phlogiston; that, in the act of burning, their energy which was potential becomes kinetic or dynamical, and is dissipated in the form of light and heat; that the products of their burning (including the gaseous product now known to be furnished by the burning of charcoal) are substances devoid of chemical energy—that is, of phlogiston; that, when the acid substance furnished by burning sulphur is heated with charcoal, some energy of the unburnt charcoal is transferred to the burnt sulphur, just as some energy of a raised weight may be transferred to a fallen one, whereby the burnt sulphur is unburnt, provided with energy, and enabled to burn again, and the fallen weight is lifted up, provided with energy, and enabled to fall again; that the potential chemical energy of metallic lead did not originate in the lead, but is energy or phlogiston transferred thereto from the charcoal by which it was smelted; and, lastly, that the chemical energy of the charcoal itself, its capability of burning, its power of doing work, in one word, its phlogiston, is merely a portion of energy appropriated directly from the solar rays?
If this be a correct interpretation of the phlogistic doctrine, it is evident that the Stahlians, though ignorant of much that has since become known, were nevertheless cognizant of much that became afterward forgotten. For most of what has since become known mankind are indebted to the surpassing genius of Lavoisier; but the truth which he established, alike with that which he subverted, is now recognizable as a partial truth only; and the merit of his generalization is now perceived to consist in its addition to—its demerit to consist in its supercession of—the not less grand generalization established by his scarcely-remembered predecessors. This being so, the relationship to one another of the Stahlian and Lavoisierian theories of combustion furnishes an apt illustration of the general truth set forth by a great modern writer, that "in the human mind one-sidedness has always been the rule, and many-sidedness the exception. Hence, even in revolutions of opinion, one part of the truth usually sets while another rises. Even progress, which ought to superadd, for the most part only substitutes one partial and incomplete truth for another; improvement consisting chiefly in this, that the new fragment of truth is more wanted, more adapted to the needs of the time, than that which it displaces."
The partial truth contributed by Lavoisier was indeed more want-
