Page:Lavoisier-ElementsOfChemistry.pdf/173

 We exerted the most scrupulous attention to its accuracy; and have reason to believe that the above propositions cannot vary a two hundredth part form absolute truth.

From these experiments, both analytical and synthetic, we may now affirm that we have ascertained, with as much certainty as is possible in physical or chemical subjects, that water is not a simple elementary substance, but is composed of two elements, oxygen and hydrogen; which elements, when existing separately, have so strong affinity for caloric, as only to subsist under the form of gas in the common temperature and pressure of our atmosphere.

This decomposition and recomposition of water is perpetually operating before our eyes, in the temperature of the atmosphere, by means of compound elective attraction. We shall presently see that the phenomena attendant upon vinous fermentation, putrefaction, and even vegetation, are produced, at least in a certain degree, by decomposition of water. It is very extraordinary that this fact should have hitherto been overlooked by natural philosophers and chemists: Indeed, it strongly proves, that in chemistry, as in moral philosophy, it is extremely difficult to overcome prejudices imbibed in early education, and to search for truth in any other road than the one we have been accustomed to follow.