Abstract
This is the first of a pair of papers. It focuses on the development of the most notable phlogistic theories during the period 1766–1791, including the main experiments that their proponents proposed them to interpret. There was a rapid proliferation of late phlogistic theories, particularly from 1784, and the accounts of composition and important implications of the main theories are set out and their issues analysed. Each of them either reached impasses due to internal problems, or included features that made them unacceptable even to other phlogistians. The expositions and analyses of these theories are given in terms of details that were in the literature at the time or otherwise potentially understandable by the participants given contemporary practice. Some relevant methodological aspects of the history of science are discussed, and the secondary literature is briefly surveyed. The second paper deals with the contemporary development of the new chemistry, and with theory comparison and theory choice in the same period.
Highlights
This work followed the French tradition, in which chemistry textbooks usually had a small section on the proposed ultimate substances, while concentrating mainly on operations on experimentally-available substances, and without proposing detailed links between the proposed overall theory and the practical operations.5 Macquer greatly admired Stahl, but did not adopt most of the main points of Stahl’s attempt at a comprehensive view of chemistry, including Stahl’s four principles
It deals with the development of problems in the main later phlogistic theories between 1766, when Cavendish published his three papers on airs and 1791, when Kirwan abandoned phlogiston, while the second deals with the contemporary development of the new chemistry, and with theory comparison and theory choice in the same period
Cavendish’s phlogistic interpretations departed from the rigorously empirical style of most of the material in his papers, in that they were effectively applied after the experiments, and he did not test them even though in some respects they were testable. Concerning his inflammable air, Cavendish’s (1766, p. 145) interpretation was that when the metals he had used were dissolved in spirit of salt or dilute vitriolic acid, ‘‘their phlogiston flies off, without having its nature changed by the acid, and forms the inflammable air’’
Summary
This work followed the French tradition, in which chemistry textbooks usually had a small section on the proposed ultimate substances, while concentrating mainly on operations on experimentally-available substances, and without proposing detailed links between the proposed overall theory and the practical operations.5 Macquer greatly admired Stahl, but did not adopt most of the main points of Stahl’s attempt at a comprehensive view of chemistry, including Stahl’s four principles. 145) interpretation was that when the metals he had used were dissolved in spirit of salt or dilute vitriolic acid, ‘‘their phlogiston flies off, without having its nature changed by the acid, and forms the inflammable air’’.10 Cavendish took into account the existing phlogistic theory that
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