The discovery of the gases, of a new class of bodies more active than any others in most of the phenomena of nature and art, could not fail to modify the whole theory of chemistry, and, under the genius of Lavoisier, it ultimately led to the establishment of those new doctrines, which it is the principal object of this history to expound; but before this task can be accomplished, it will be necessary to consider the rise and progress of opinion concerning chemical attraction, and heat and light, since these subjects are too intimately interwoven with the _anti-phlogistic_ system to be separated from any examination of its principles. Boyle, says Sir Humphry Davy, was one of the most active experimenters, and certainly the greatest chemist of his age. He introduced the use of _tests_, or _re-agents_, active substances for detecting the presence of other bodies: he overturned the ideas which at that time were prevalent, that the results of operations by fire were the real elements of things; and he ascertained a number of important facts respecting inflammable bodies, and alkalies, and the phenomena of combination; but neither he nor any of his contemporaries endeavoured to account for the changes of bodies by any fixed principles. The solutions of the phenomena were attempted either on rude mechanical notions, or by occult qualities, or peculiar subtile spirits or ethers, supposed to exist in the different bodies. And it is to the same great genius who developed the laws that regulate the motions of the heavenly bodies, that chemistry owes the first distinct philosophical elucidations of the powers which produce the changes and apparent transmutations of the substances belonging to the earth. "Sugar dissolves in water, alkalies unite with acids, metals dissolve in acids. Is not this," says Newton, "on account of an attraction between their particles? Copper dissolved in aqua fortis is thrown down by iron. Is not this because the particles of the iron have a stronger attraction for the particles of the acid, than those of copper; and do not different bodies attract each other with different degrees of force?" In 1719, Geoffroy endeavoured to ascertain the relative attractive powers of bodies for each other, and to arrange them, under the form of a table, in an order in which these forces, which he named affinities, were expressed. Concerning the nature of heat, there are two opinions which have ever divided the chemical world. The one considers it merely as a property of matter, and that it consists in an undefinable motion, or vibration of its particles; the other, on the contrary, regards it as a distinct and subtile substance, _sui generis_. Each of these opinions has been supported by the greatest philosophers, and for a long period the arguments on both sides appeared equally plausible and forcible. The discovery of Dr. Black, however, gave a preponderance to the scale in favour of its materiality.