The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry

If the argument against the separation of a metal into two constituents, by calcination, were answered to-day as it was answered by the upholders of the phlogistic theory, in the middle of the 18th century, the answers would justly be considered inconsequent and ridiculous. But it does not follow that the statements were either far-fetched or absurd at the time they were made. They were expressed in the phraseology of the time; a phraseology, it is true, sadly lacking in consistency, clearness, and appropriateness, but the only language then available for the description of such changes as those which happen when metals are calcined. One might suppose that it must always have sounded ridiculous to say that the weight of a thing can be decreased by adding something to it, that part of a thing weighs more than the whole of it. But the absurdity disappears if it can be admitted that mass, which is measured by weight, may be a property like colour, or taste, or smell; for the colour, taste, or smell of a thing may certainly be made less by adding something else, and the colour, taste, or smell of a thing may also be increased by adding something else. If we did not know that what we call quantity of substance is measured by the property named mass, we might very well accept the proposition that the entrance of phlogiston into a substance decreases the quantity, hence the mass, and, therefore, the weight, of the substance.