Carl Wilhelm Scheele

“ It is seen from these experiments that phlogiston, the simple inflammable principle, is present in each of them. It is known that the air strongly attracts to itself the inflammable part of substances and deprives them of it: not only this may be seen from the experiments cited, but it is at the same time evident that on the transference of the inflammable substance to the air a considerable part of the air is lost. ”

“ The swelling up of peas in cold water is to be ascribed mainly to the fire-air present in the water. If a bottle is filled full of water and a few peas are placed in it, after 24 hours the water contains aerial acid it is true, but no fire-air. In water boiled and become cold, peas swell up only a little. ”

“ For when I have collected an elastic fluid, and observe concerning it that its expansive power is increased by heat and diminished by cold, while it still uniformly retains its elastic fluidity, but also discover in it properties and behaviour different from those of common air, then I consider myself justified in believing that this is a peculiar kind of air. ”

“ In the same treatise I made mention of a peculiar explosion which took place in the distillation of zinc with the acid of arsenic. How clear, how manifest does the explanation of this phenomenon not become when one is satisfied that in this case fire-air is present in the retort in its greatest purity, and the zinc is in red hot fusion? What more is necessary for its ignition?
I have very often regarded with pleasure the brightly glowing sparks which are produced in a retort by heat alone, during the reduction of metallic calces, when only a very little coal dust is mixed along with it. ”

“ The attraction which the blood has for phlogiston cannot be so strong as that with which plants and insects attract it from the air, and then the blood cannot convert air into aerial acid; still it becomes converted into an air which lies midway between fire-air and aerial acid, that is, a vitiated air; for it unites neither with lime nor with water after the manner of fire-air and it extinguishes fire, after that of aerial acid. ”

“ These experiments shew, therefore, that this fire-air is just that air by means of which fire burns in common air; only it is there mixed with a kind of air which seems to possess no attraction at all for the inflammable substance, and this it is which places some hindrance in the way of the otherwise rapid and violent inflammation. And in fact, if air consisted of nothing but fire-air, water would surely render small service in extinguishing outbreaks of fire. ”

“ But since they see that the air so produced is endowed with properties quite different from common air, they conclude, without experimental proofs, that this air has united with foreign materials, and that it must be purified from these admixed foreign particles by agitation and filtration with various liquids. I believe that there would be no hesitation in accepting this opinion, if one could only demonstrate clearly by experiments that a given quantity of air is capable of being completely converted into fixed or other kind of air by the admixture of foreign materials ”

“ I then perceived that in each experiment between 7 and 8 ounces of water rose into the flasks, consequently the nineteenth part of the air has been lost. This was indeed something, but since in the combustion of phosphorus (§ 17) nearly the third part of the air was lost, there must be another reason besides, why as much is not absorbed in this case also. It is known that one part of aerial acid mixed with 10 parts of ordinary air extinguishes fire ”

“ Air is that fluid invisible substance which we continually breathe, which surrounds the whole surface of the earth, is very elastic, and possesses weight. It is always filled with an astonishing quantity of all kinds of exhalations, which are so finely subdivided in it that they are scarcely visible even in the sun's rays. Water vapours always have the preponderance amongst these foreign particles. The air, however, is also mixed with another elastic substance resembling air, which differs from it in numerous properties, and is, with good reason, called aerial acid by Professor Bergman. ”

“ Fire must burn for a certain time in a given quantity of air. (2.) If, so far as can be seen, this fire does not produce during combustion any fluid resembling air, then, after the fire has gone out of itself, the quantity of air must be diminished between a third and a fourth part. (3.) It must not unite with common water. (4.) All kinds of animals must live for a certain time in a confined quantity of air. (5.) Seeds, as for example peas, in a given quantity of similarly confined air, must strike roots and attain a certain height with the aid of some water and of a moderate heat. ”

“ It is known that the acids lose those properties by which they reveal themselves as acids, by the addition of the inflammable substance, as sulphur, the elastic acid of nitre, regulus of arsenic, sugar, and the like, plainly shew. I am inclined to believe that fire-air consists of a subtle acid substance united with phlogiston, and it is probable that all acids derive their origin from fire-air. Now, if this air penetrates into plants, these must attract the phlogiston, and consequently the acid, which manifests itself as aerial acid, must be produced. ”

“ It is also to be observed that fire-air, vitiated by the lungs, extinguishes fire; why does not the aerial acid attract the phlogiston again? why not also the vitiated air? Mr. Priestley indeed has accomplished this, but it did not succeed with me however much I also wished it. He has converted aerial acid into wholesome air by means of a mixture of iron filings, sulphur, and some water. When I desired to repeat this experiment, the aerial acid was always absorbed by the iron filings. ”

“ Although Priestley was 'in possession of 'the gas 'before November 1771' (Experiments on Natural Philosophy, i. 194) , it is admitted that Karl Wilhelm Scheele, the great Swedish chemist, working quite independently, first recognised it as a distinct species 'before 1773' (Nordenskjöld and Thorpe) , but Scheele did not publish his researches until after Priestley. Lavoisier's claim to subsequent but independent discovery, for which his own statement is the only evidence, offers greater difficulty. ”

“ It is known that freshly drawn blood, when it stands in the open air, assumes a fine red on the surface, and that the under portions likewise become red when they come into contact with the air. Does the air in this case undergo any alteration? I filled a flask one third part [Pg 39] with freshly drawn ox blood, closed it tightly with a bladder, and shook up the blood frequently. Eight hours afterwards I neither found aerial acid in this air, nor that its bulk was diminished; but the flame of a candle was immediately extinguished in it. ”

“ Chemistry owes to him 429 some of her most important instruments of research, and many of her most useful combinations; and no single person ever discovered so many new and curious substances.
"Scheele possessed in the highest degree the faculty of invention; all his labours were instituted with an object in view, and after happy or bold analogies. He owed little to fortune or to accidental circumstances: born in an obscure situation, occupied in the duties of an irksome employment, nothing could damp the ardour of his mind, or chill the fire of his genius ”

“ For instance, when he said that 200,000 rifles for German revolutionists were stored in a German club in New York, its searchers did find evidence that rifles had earlier been stored there, but later removed. Scheele was taken from Washington to New York to point out these rifles. He would not go with less than four men as a guard. He is always afraid some German will kill him. Oh, yes, he is still alive. The secret men of the United States know where he is. He can be seen. He will talk. He is an elderly, kindly-looking man now—a man who speaks of his “honor as a German officer!” ”

“ The animal decomposes the iron, the plant decomposes the water. The female and the male sex of the plant is the carbon and the nitrogen of the water." These are two examples of the philosophy of Schelling, which was believed at that time to be the science by which Germany could be regenerated, by which the generation which had then only just recovered its independence would be put on a firm mental basis. ”

“ With the opponents of rationalism Schelling agrees that we cannot reach the inner meaning of reality, "the living, moving element in nature," through the scientific intelligence, but that we must envisage it in intuition. ”

“ The Thought which is free and independent, not abstract, but in itself concrete, comprehends itself in itself as an intellectually actual world; and this is the truth of Nature, Nature in itself. The second great merit possessed by Schelling is to have pointed out in Nature the forms of Spirit; thus electricity, magnetism, &c., are for him only external modes of the Idea. His defect is that this Idea in general, its distinction into the ideal and the natural world, and also the totality of these determinations, are not shown forth and developed as necessitated in themselves by the Notion. ”

“ He encouraged his ardour, and made him his friend. This young man was the celebrated Scheele.
[17] No man ever entered upon an undertaking with less apparent means of success, than did Priestley upon that of Chemistry. He neither possessed apparatus, nor the money to procure it. These circumstances, which at first sight seem so adverse, were in reality those which contributed to his ultimate success. The branch of Chemistry he selected was new; an apparatus had to be invented before any important step could be taken ”

“ On the 21st of May, 1886, the one-hundredth anniversary of Scheele's death, the people of Köping held an imposing celebration in memory of the man who had distinguished their town by making it the chosen home of one of the founders of the modern science of chemistry; and the representatives of science in Sweden, Germany, France, Switzerland, and other countries, expressed their sympathy in the occasion in appropriate messages. ”

“ Schelling's opponents, on the other hand, must be prepared to hold and to show that there is no nature common to all intelligence—that the different orders of minds (supposing that there are such) have no point of unity or agreement—that their difference is absolute and complete. This is the only logical ground on which they can deny to the mind of man all cognisance of the unconditioned truth. Such seem to be the grounds on which the famous question respecting the philosophy of the unconditioned has to be debated. ”

“ Amongst the many sagacious sayings of the patient and profound thinkers of Germany, not the least noteworthy was Schelling’s affirmation that the phenomena of instinct are some of the most important of all phenomena, and capable of serving as a very touch-stone whereby the value of competing theories of the universe may be effectually tested. His prescience has been justified by our experience. The greatest scientific event of the present time is the wide acceptance of the theory of evolution, and its use as a weapon of offence and defence. ”

“ Common language assigns energy to mind. In Schelling's system, therefore, this world is declared to be a system of forces or energies, where all is combat, and all is change. All these forces are but modifications of one eternal substance, which in the modern German school is called the absolute, or that which is absolutely necessary, and beyond which the mind seeks for no other existence. ”

“ To those who cannot rise beyond a philosophy of reflection, Schelling candidly allows that the doctrine of the absolute can appear only as a series of contradictions; and he has at least the negative merit of having clearly exposed the absurdity of a philosophy of the unconditioned, as founded on a knowledge by difference, if he has utterly failed in positively proving the possibility of such a philosophy, as founded on a knowledge in identity, and through an absorption into the absolute. ”

“ As it is hard for common apprehension to conceive this absolute, and seize upon this identity of thought and thing, Schelling invented a faculty of mind expressly for the comprehension of such profound doctrines of philosophy. He called it intellectual intuition. Those who possess it not—and it is by no means general—must be content to live without philosophy. Nor can those on whom nature has failed to bestow this intellectual intuition, acquire it by any study or industry of their own. Philosophus nascitur, non fit. ”

“ Quantitative difference, which appears outside of absolute identity and totality, is therefore, according to Schelling, in itself absolute identity, and consequently thinkable only under the form of the quantitative indifference of the subjective and objective. “This opposition does not therefore occur in itself, or from the standpoint of speculation. From this standpoint A exists just as much as B does; for A like B is the whole absolute identity, which only exists under the two forms, but under both of them alike. Absolute identity is the universe itself. ”

“ With Schelling the speculative form has thus again come to the front, and philosophy has again obtained a special character of its own; the principle of Philosophy, rational thought in itself, has obtained the form of thought. In the philosophy of Schelling the content, the truth, has once more become the matter of chief importance, whereas in the Kantian philosophy the point of interest was more especially stated to be the necessity for investigating subjective knowledge. ”

“ Schelling's ground is that there is a common nature or quality in all intelligence; that man, through his participation in this common nature, is, so far, a pure—that is, a non-particular or universal—intelligence, and hence is, so far, capable of cognising universal or unconditioned truth. ”