A most interesting memoir on the history of phlogiston is that of Rodwell, in the Philosophical Magazine, 1868, in which it is shown that the idea of phlogiston dates very far back, that Basil Valentine (1394–1415), in the Cursus Triumphalis Antimonii, Paracelsus (1493–1541), in his work, De Rerum Natura, Glauber (1604–1668), and especially John Joachim Becher (1625–1682), in his Physica Subterranea, all referred to phlogiston, but under different names.
An Englishman, named Mayow, who lived a whole century before Lavoisier (in 1666), understood certain phenomena of oxidation in their true aspect, but was not able to develop his views with clearness, or support them by conclusive experiments; he cannot therefore be considered, like Lavoisier, as the founder of contemporary chemical learning. Science is a universal heritage, and therefore it is only just to give the highest honour in science, not to those who first enunciate a certain truth, but to those who are first able to convince others of its authenticity and establish it for the general welfare. But scientific discoveries are rarely made all at once; as a rule, the first teachers do not succeed in convincing others of the truth they have discovered; with time, however, a true herald comes forward, possessing every means for making the truth apparent to all, but it must not be forgotten that such are entirely indebted to the labours and mass of data accumulated by many others. Such was Lavoisier, and such are all the great founders of science. They are the enunciators of all past and present learning, and their names will always be revered by posterity.