"Had Stahl and Beccher carried out the conclusions which the early disciples of Bacon had imperfectly announced, we should not have waited till the close of the eighteenth century, and the advent of Lavoisier, for the true interpretation of the nature of combustion. A Joshua would have been found some half a century sooner, and the goodly land which the chemists cultivate, would exhibit a much wider extent of fertile territory than it does at the present day."