The term _attraction_, having been recommended by Newton as a fit word to designate the force which produces chemical combination, continued in great favour in England, where the Newtonian philosophy was looked upon as applicable to every branch of science. In France, on the contrary, where Descartes still reigned triumphant, 'attraction,' the watch-word of the enemy, was a sound never uttered but with dislike and suspicion. In 1718 (in the notice of Geoffroy's Table,) the Secretary of the Academy, after pointing out some of the peculiar circumstances of chemical {18} combinations, says, 'Sympathies and attractions would suit well here, if there were such things,' 'Les sympathies, les attractions conviendroient bien ici, si elles étaient quelque chose.' And at a later period, in 1731, having to write the _éloge_ of Geoffroy after his death, he says, 'He gave, in 1718, a singular system, and a Table of _Affinities_, or Relations of the different substances in chemistry. These affinities gave an easiness to some persons, who feared that they were _attractions in disguise_, and all the more dangerous in consequence of the seductive forms which clever people have contrived to give them. It was found in the sequel that this scruple might be got over.' This is the earliest published instance, so far as I am aware, in which the word 'Affinity' is distinctly used for the cause of chemical composition; and taking into account the circumstances, the word appears to have been adopted in France in order to avoid the word _attraction_, which had the taint of Newtonianism. Accordingly we find the word _affinité_ employed in the works of French chemists from this time. Thus, in the _Transactions of the French Academy_ for 1746, in a paper of Macquer's upon Arsenic, he says[15\6], 'On peut facilement rendre raison de ces phenomènes par le moyen des affinités que les différens substances qui entrent dans ces combinaisons, ont les uns avec les autres:' and he proceeds to explain the facts by reference to Geoffroy's Table. And in Macquer's _Elements of Chemistry_, which appeared a few years later, the 'Affinity of Composition' is treated of as a leading part of the subject, much in the same way as has been practised in such books up to the present time. From this period, the word appears to have become familiar to all European chemists in the sense of which we are now speaking. Thus, in the year 1758, the Academy of Sciences at Rouen offered a prize for the best dissertation on Affinity. The prize was shared between M. Limbourg of Theux, near Liege, and M. Le Sage {19} of Geneva[16\6]. About the same time other persons (Manherr[17\6], Nicolai[18\6], and others) wrote on the same subject, employing the same name. [Note 15\6: _A. P._ 1746, p. 201.] [Note 16\6: Thomson's _Chemistry_, iii. 10. Limbourg's Dissertation was published at Liege, in 1761; and Le Sage's at Geneva.] [Note 17\6: _Dissertatio de Affinitate Corporum_. Vindob. 1762.]