The Berthollet-Proust Controversy and the Law of Definite Proportions

Abstract

IN his able address at the annual meeting of the Chemical Society, the President spoke of chemical text-books somewhat scornfully. While I confess that I am not prepared to regard these books as “soul-destroying,” one and all, I have long felt at least that the dogmatic exposition of the elementary laws of chemistry to which they have accustomed us is most unsatisfactory, and that a critical re-statement of first principles is much needed. To deal with the subject fully, would carry me far beyond the limits of a letter to NATURE; but it is proposed in the following communication to draw attention to certain serious misconceptions which have crept into modern text-books with regard to the Berthollet-Proust controversy and the Law of Definite Proportions, and to attempt to redefine somewhat more accurately the points which were at issue.