vitriol_, _butter of arsenic and of antimony_, _flowers of zinc_, &c.
were still more improper, because they suggested false ideas: For, in
the whole mineral kingdom, and particularly in the metallic class, there
exists no such thing as butters, oils, or flowers; and, in short, the
substances to which they give these fallacious names, are nothing less
than rank poisons.
When we published our essay on the nomenclature of chemistry, we were
reproached for having changed the language which was spoken by our
masters, which they distinguished by their authority, and handed down to
us. But those who reproach us on this account, have forgotten that it
was Bergman and Macquer themselves who urged us to make this
reformation. In a letter which the learned Professor of Upsal, M.
Bergman, wrote, a short time before he died, to M. de Morveau, he bids
him _spare no improper names; those who are learned, will always be
learned, and those who are ignorant will thus learn sooner_.
There is an objection to the work which I am going to present to the
public, which is perhaps better founded, that I have given no account of
the opinion of those who have gone before me; that I have stated only my
own opinion, without examining that of others. By this I have been
prevented from doing that justice to my associates, and more especially
to foreign chemists, which I wished to render them. But I beseech the
reader to consider, that, if I had filled an elementary work with a
multitude of quotations; if I had allowed myself to enter into long
dissertations on the history of the science, and the works of those who
have studied it, I must have lost sight of the true object I had in
view, and produced a work, the reading of which must have been extremely
tiresome to beginners. It is not to the history of the science, or of
the human mind, that we are to attend in an elementary treatise: Our
only aim ought to be ease and perspicuity, and with the utmost care to
keep every thing out of view which might draw aside the attention of the
student; it is a road which we should be continually rendering more
smooth, and from which we should endeavour to remove every obstacle
which can occasion delay. The sciences, from their own nature, present a
sufficient number of difficulties, though we add not those which are
foreign to them. But, besides this, chemists will easily perceive, that,
in the first part of my work, I make very little use of any experiments
but those which were made by myself: If at any time I have adopted,
without acknowledgment, the experiments or the opinions of M.
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