Henry Cavendish

"Young people must break machines to learn how to use them; get another made!"

"By factitious air, I mean in general any kind of air which is contained any in other bodies in an unelastic state, and is produced from thence by art."

"By fixed air, I mean that particular species of factitious air, which is separated from alcaline substances by solution in s or by calcination and to which Dr. Black has given that name in his treatise on quicklime."

"I think we must allow that dephlogisticated air is in reality nothing but dephlogisticated water, or water deprived of its phlogiston; or, in other words, that water consists of dephlogisticated air united to phlogiston; and that inflammable air is either pure phlogiston, as Dr. Priestley and Mr. Kirwan suppose [and as Cavendish formerly supposed], or else water united to phlogiston; since, according to this supposition, these two substances united together form pure water. On the other hand, if the first explanation be true, we must suppose that dephlogisticated air consists of water united to a little and deprived of its phlogiston; but still the nitrous acid in it must make only a very small part of the whole, as it is found, that the phlogisticated air, which it is converted into, is very small in comparison of the dephlogisticated air."

"He was the wealthiest of all scholars (savants) and probably also the most scholarly of all the wealthy."

"I never charged or thought of charging Mr. Cavendish with having obtained from Mr. Watt's paper his knowledge of the composition of water, and having knowingly borrowed it, however suspicious a case Mr. Harcourt's publication may seem to make. Both those great men, in my opinion, made the discovery apart from each other, and ignorant each of the other's doctrine. Mr. Cavendish was a man of the strictest integrity, and the most perfect sense of justice. His feelings were very far inferior to his principles. He was singularly callous to the ordinary calls of humanity, as there exist positive proofs sufficient to satisfy the polemical writer upon whose paper ['Eloge de M. Cavendish'] I have been commenting if he has any mind to see them. Nor do they rest on my assertion, for I never had any intercourse with him except in society. But the pursuits of a philosopher and the life of a recluse, which had so entirely hardened his heart, had not in the least degree impaired his sense of justice; and my own belief is, that he as entirely supposed himself to have alone made the discovery in question, as Sir Isaac Newton believed himself to be the sole discoverer of the nature of light, and the theory of the solar system."

"It were to be wished, that this noble philosopher would communicate more of his experiments to the world, as he makes many, and with great accuracy."

"It only remains that I offer very briefly my own estimate of the character of the Philosopher. Morally it was a blank, and can be described only by a series of negations. He did not love; he did not hate; he did not hope; he did not fear; he did not worship as others do. He separated himself from his fellow men, and apparently from God. There was nothing earnest, enthusiastic, heroic, or chivalrous in his nature, and as little was there anything mean, grovelling, or ignoble. He was almost passionless."

"All that needed for its apprehension, more than the pure intellect, or required the exercise of fancy, imagination, affection, or faith, was distasteful to Cavendish. An intellectual head thinking, a pair of wonderfully acute eyes observing, and a pair of very skilful hands experimenting or recording, are all that I realise in reading his memorials."

"His brain seems to have been but a calculating engine; his eyes inlets of vision, not fountains of tears; his hands instruments of manipulation which never trembled with emotion, or were clasped together in adoration, thanksgiving, or despair; his heart only an anatomical organ, necessary for of the circulation of the blood."

"Yet, if such a being, who reversed the maxim nihil humani me alienum puto [nothing human is foreign to me], cannot be loved, as little can he be abhorred or despised. He was, in spite of the atrophy or non development of many of the faculties which are found in those in whom the "elements are kindly mixed," as truly a genius as the mere poets, painters, and musicians, with small intellects, and hearts and large imaginations, to whom the world is so willing to bend the knee."

"He is more to be wondered at than blamed."

"Cavendish did not stand aloof from other men in a proud or supercilious spirit, refusing to count them his fellows. He felt himself separated from them by a great gulf, which neither they nor he could bridge over, and across which it was vain to stretch hands or exchange greetings. A sense of isolation from his brethren, made him shrink from their society and avoid their presence, but he did so as one conscious of an infirmity, not boasting of an excellence."

"He was like a deaf mute sitting apart from a circle, whose looks and gestures show that they are uttering and listening to music and eloquence, in producing or welcoming which he can be no sharer. Wisely, therefore, he dwelt apart, and bidding the world farewell, took the self imposed vows of a Scientific Anchorite, and, like the Monks of old, shut himself up within his cell. It was a kingdom sufficient for him, and from its narrow window he saw as much of the Universe as he cared to see. It had a throne also, and from it he dispensed royal gifts to his brethren."

"He was one of the unthanked benefactors of his race, who was patiently teaching and serving mankind, whilst they were shrinking from his coldness, or mocking his peculiarities."

"He could not sing for them a sweet song, or create a "thing of beauty" which should be "a joy for ever," or touch their hearts, or fire their spirits, or deepen their reverence or their fervour. He was not a Poet, a Priest, or a Prophet, but only a cold, clear, Intelligence, raying down pure white light, which brightened everything on which it fell, but warmed nothing—a Star of at least the second, if not of the first magnitude, in the Intellectual Firmament."

"[A] prolonged and acrimonious controversy... was for many years carried on and is... hardly... settled regarding the respective claims of different philosophers to be the true discoverer of the nature and composition of water."

"In the year 1781, Cavendish made a long and careful series of experiments... not published till Jan., 1784, when his celebrated... Experiments on Air was read to the royal society."

"In the interval (June, 1783) his friend, Dr. Blagden, visited Paris, and on the authority of Cavendish, gave an account of the experiments proving the composition of water to Lavoisier..."

"[T]his delay between the discovery and the date of publication caused his claims to one of the most marvelous discoveries the world ever saw, to be contested by... James Watt and Lavoisier."

"Cavendish's experiments consisted in exploding, in various proportions, mixtures of and atmospheric air, and of hydrogen and oxygen, and finding as the result a liquid which proved to be pure water. (Priestley and his friend, Mr. [John] Warltire, had made similar experiments, and had noticed the deposition of moisture that followed the explosion, but failed to recognize it anything but the condensation of aqueous vapors in the gases.)"

"The general conclusion to which Cavendish came was, in his own words, "that water consists of dephlogisticated air united with phlogiston," and as dephlogisticated air was his term for oxygen, and phlogiston his term for , this statement corresponds to the modern view of the nature of water introduced by Lavoisier."

"As Lavoisier was from the first accused by the English chemists of having acted unfairly toward them, and as indeed his own claim only dates back to June 25, 1783, he may be dismissed from further consideration; and during the lives of the English claimants there were no public complaints on either side, although Watt, in private letters to his friends, hinted at Cavendish's incapacity and unfairness."

"Hence then—at all events in this country—scientific men were startled when Arago... published in 1838 the eloge of Watt, which he had read as far back as Dec., 1834, in which he charged Cavendish with deceit and plagiarism, inasmuch as he was said to have learned the composition of water, not by experiments of his own, but by obtaining sight of a letter from Watt to Priestley. The battle now fairly began..."

"At the time Cavendish made his study of compounds, chemists still had not been able to "determine what it /arsenic/ really is, or to what class of bodies it belongs." ...[A]rsenic behaves as a in some states, and like a salt in other states. ...[L]ike every metallic , arsenic [could be] changed into a metallic form... "regulus of arsenic"... [by combining] with "phlogiston." ...[L]ike salts, arsenic is soluble in water. ...[N]either ic nor ne, yet Macquer claimed, behaving as if it were an acid. ...In other ways ...arsenic differs from other... calces: it is volatile with a strong smell, it is fusible, it unites with metals and s—the difference that Macquer and Cavendish picked up on—it decomposes nitre when distilled with it. From the standpoint of affinities... arsenic is exceptional too."

"Neutral salts, Cavendish's starting point... were... composed of s and other substances, mostly s, that were without acidity. Not long before, all of the known neutral salts could be listed in a table of twelve... the possible combinations of the four known acidic salts and the three known alkaline salts. Just as Cavendish began to work... the tidy, managable table... was fast expanding. The empirical field of salts was recognized as highly undeveloped..."

"Cavendish procured Macquer's neutral salt using Macquer's method of distilling with nitre, producing copious red fumes... leaving... a cake of neutral arsenical salt. He then tried... dissolving arsenic in spirit of nitre, then adding pearl ashes... to obtain neutral arsenical salt. ...[His] discovery: what combined with the alkali ...was ...a new acid, "arsenical acid" ...[T]his new acid had "all the properties of an acid... unless perhaps it should fail in respect of taste which I have thought not proper to try." This research was the high point of Cavendish's researches on ."