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A view of the chemical revolution through contemporary textbooks: Lavoisier, Fourcroy and Chaptal*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent
Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent
Affiliation:
Département de Philosophie, Université Paris X, 200 Avenue de la République, F-92100, Nanterre Cedex, France.
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Extract

Scientific textbooks are often said to deliver a stereotyped kind of knowledge, which conceals rather than reveals the real making of science. They may, however, alternatively be regarded as of peculiar interest for historians of science. An over-mechanical application of the Kuhnian concepts of ‘scientific revolution’ and ‘normal science’ can lead to the neglect of the internal dynamics of ‘normal science’. Scientific textbooks may provide a better understanding of the process of normalization in science.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , December 1990 , pp. 435 - 460
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1990

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References

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20 Ibid, T.III, p. 453; Chaptal also advocated the alliance of chemistry with medicine, (T. 3, p. 458) and mineralogy (T2. p. 6).

21 Fourcroy, , Eléments d'Histoire naturelle et de chimie. 2nd edn, 1786, T.I, pp. Ixv–xcxixGoogle Scholar. In the later editions the number of categories was reduced to fourteen and to twelve in the entry ‘Axiomes’ of the Encyclopédie méthodique, Chimie, vol. II (1792)Google Scholar, reprinted in Philosophie chimique.

22 Ibid., 5th edn, Paris, An II, T.I, p. viij.

23 For a detailed presentation of this book and information about its reception, see Smeaton, W.A., Fourcroy, chemist and revolutionary, 1755–1809, Cambridge, 1962, pp. 191–195Google Scholar, Fourcroy's twelve headings in the Philosophie chimique, 1792Google Scholar, were: (1) The action of light; (2) the action of caloric; (3) the action of air in combustion; (4) the nature and action of water; (5) the nature and action of earth, and the formation of alkalis; their roles in combinations; (6) the nature and properties of combustible substances; (7) the formation and decomposition of acids; (8) the union of acids with the earths and alkalis; (9) the oxidation and solution of metals; (10) the nature and formation of vegetable matter; (11) the passage of vegetables to the state of animal matter, and the nature of the latter; (12) the spontaneous decomposition of vegetable and animal matters.

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39 One of Lavoisier's colleagues, however, seemed to agree with him. Guyton de Morveau celebrated Lavoisier as the founder of the new chemistry in 1786, when he gave up the phlogiston theory, and wrote a second Foreword to the first volume of the dictionary of chemistry in the Encyclopédie métbodique. Using the resources of academic rhetoric, Guyton portrayed Lavoisier as a hero fighting against dogmatism and error. He compared him with le ‘grand Descartes’, (1Guyton de Morveau, L.B., Dictionnaire de chimie de I'Encyclopédie Méthodique, T.1, 1786, p. 628)Google Scholar. See Bensaude-Vincent, B., ‘A Founder myth in the History of Sciences? The Lavoisier case’, in L. Graham, W. Lepenies and P. Wiengart (eds), Functions and Uses of Disciplinary Histories, vol. vii, 1983, pp. 53–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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43 The drafts kept in the Archives de l'Academie de Science (Folder 1260), include two projects. One, dated 12 December 1792, only detailed the first and the second part under the heading ‘Table des chapitres d'un cours de chimie expérimentale’. The second, dated 18 December 1792, is entitled ‘Table générale d'un cours de Philosophie expérimentale’ and gives an outline of six parts, though the second one is lacking.

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46 In emphasizing ‘decombustion’, as a symmetric reaction to combustion, Lavoisier referred to Fourcroy: ‘Presque tous les phénomènes de la nature, suivant M. de Fourcroy, peuvent se rapporter à deux classes principals, la combustion et la décombustion. Dans la combustion, le corps combustible passe à l'état incombustible. Dans la décombustion, le corps incombustible passe à l'état combustible. Nous ne connaissons guère de décombustion que par des affinités très composées’. In a separate note on decombustion, Lavoisier noticed that decombustion was necessary to balance the preponderant tendency of nature towards combustions: ‘La végétation est une décombustion. Cette opération doit produire les effets inverses de la combustion et doit être accompagnée d'absorption de lumière et de calorique. Elle doit être aussi lente que la combustion est rapide. Nous sommes environnés de corps dans lesquels s'opère une décombustion lente’.

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50 Ibid., p. xxiij.

51 Ibid., p. xxx.

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