Chemistry

In mineralogy the two modalities of the geometrical spirit—systematics and mathematics—intersected at Haüy's theory of crystal structure. A similar convergence and intersection may be seen in chemistry, though with a difference. Whereas in mineralogy the point of contact between systematics and mathematics lay in criteria of classification, in chemistry it was most pronounced in the establishment of rationalized nomenclature. The chemists' reform of their system of naming was inspired by algebra, legitimized by philosophy, and modeled on botany.

By the third quarter of the 18th century, pressure was mounting for reforms in the language of chemistry. A growing list of substances, of which the newly isolated atmospheric gases formed only a part, raised the problem of how names should be formulated. Criticism of the dominant phlogiston theory highlighted the potential theoretical content of chemical names. The views of the philosopher Condillac, for whom a science was a well-made language based on the natural order of mental processes and on exact correspondences between words and things, were gaining increasing currency among French savants.

Only after Linnæan systematics became available as a model and was so perceived by chemists was substantial progress made. The initiative came from Linnæus' student, the professor of chemistry at the University of Uppsala, Torbern Bergman. Bergman was disturbed by the lack of system and order in chemical names. A name might be based on the appearance or properties of a substance, its place of discovery or occurrence, the name of its discoverer, or its alchemical association with the planets. As new substances became known to chemists, they were assigned names ad hoc. The resulting confusion and imprecision of language made it difficult for aspiring chemists to master their subject and for established chemists to communicate with colleagues. In the 1770s Bergman set out to formulate a binomial system that would do for chemistry what Linnæus had done for botany.^[41]

Bergman's project gained a positive reception from the French chemist Guyton de Morveau. In a paper of 1782, Guyton cited the rapid increase in the number of known substances in the preceding twenty years as a major motive for reform. Another motive came from theoretical changes in chemistry as a result of Lavoisier's studies of combustion and the overthrow of the phlogiston theory. In the 1780s Lavoisier's theory was accepted by major scientists, including the physicist Laplace and the chemists Berthollet, Guyton de Morveau, Antoine Fourcroy, and Joseph Black. With the ensuing controversies, the problem of nomenclature became still more acute, since the terminology embodied theoretical views.^[42]

In France, Lavoisier, Guyton de Morveau, Berthollet, and Fourcroy joined to suggest appropriate reforms. One of the central pieces of the resulting Méthode de nomenclature chimique , which appeared in 1787, was an article by Lavoisier explaining the principles on which the proposed reforms were based. Lavoisier's interest in precise language and nomenclature was based in part on his impression of the contrast between the systematic, logical exposition of mathematical physics and the confusion and disorder of chemistry. He had also been impressed with Condillac's writings. Citing Condillac, Lavoisier emphasized the need for control of chemical reasoning by consistent reference to observation and experiment, a requirement closely connected with the reform of nomenclature. In Lavoisier's view there was to be an exact correspondence between a fact, the idea of the fact, and the word used to express the idea.^[43]

Lavoisier and his collaborators tried to arrive at a list of simple substances, that is, of bodies they could not decompose by any existing means of chemical analysis. The total of these substances came to

fifty-five. Most already had well-known names, which the reformers decided to keep unless they gave rise to confusion. If so, or if the substance was new, a new name would be given, usually derived from Greek and expressing the substance's most general properties. An example was hydrogen, so called because it was one of the constituents of water. To deal with the great many bodies composed of two simple substances, it was necessary to establish a classification. Here the binomial nomenclature modeled on botany took effect. The acids, which Lavoisier thought of as composed of oxygen plus one other simple substance, are a good example. Sulfuric acid is the combination of sulfur with oxygen. The similar acid containing less oxygen was called sulfurous acid . The metallic calces, which Lavoisier had shown to be compounds of metals and oxygen, had the generic name oxide and specific names derived from the names of the metals. The reforming chemists listed the simple substances, and gave a classification of their compounds with examples, in an expansive tableau de la nomenclature chimique . The result was a revolution in the language of chemistry that made the chemical name of a substance a direct expression of its elementary composition.^[44]

Underlying Lavoisier's theory of acids was his prior commitment to the existence of a systematic order for chemicals analogous to those already established for the plant and animal kingdoms. Four-croy made this commitment explicit. Writing in the Encyclopédie méthodique , he praised the Linnæan method for establishing the characters by which natural objects are recognized and described, for expressing these characters in concise phrases in which words represent precise ideas, and for reducing the description (tableau ) of immense numbers of objects to a single comprehensive framework. Fourcroy recalled that when he began to teach chemistry his mind was full of the language and descriptions of Linnaeus, and at the same time weighed down with the immense quantity of chemical properties and experiments that he found in the existing literature. The reform of chemical nomenclature in which Fourcroy had

participated had been conceived and executed in a spirit "analogous to that which had directed Linnaeus," and "we therefore find in modern chemical nomenclature a course similar to that adopted in natural history." Chemical compounds could be arranged in classes, orders, genera, and kinds (sortes ) on the basis of their principal and common properties characterized simply and concisely. In the article "axiomes chimiques ," Fourcroy presented such a scheme, which included 34 genera of salts estimated to total some 240 species. Evidently prompted by Lavoisier's naming of oxygen, Fourcroy suggested that the three species making up the genus alkalis are all formed by combinations of nitrogen with other substances, and that nitrogen or azote should therefore be called alcaligène . Lavoisier and Fourcroy were soon proved wrong in their theories of acids and alkalis, but both theories testify to the strength of the impulse to establish clear generic categories for chemistry.^[45]