known in commerce under the name of Spirit of Wine. As this liquor is produced by the fermentation of any saccharine matter whatever diluted with water, it must have been contrary to the principles of our nomenclature to call it spirit of wine rather than spirit of cyder, or of fermented sugar; wherefore, we have adopted a more general term, and the Arabic word alkohol seems extremely proper for the purpose.
This operation is one of the most extraordinary in chemistry: We must examine whence proceed the disengaged carbonic acid and the inflammable liquor produced, and in what manner a sweet vegetable oxyd becomes thus converted into two such opposite substances, whereof one is combustible, and the other eminently the contrary. To solve these two questions, it is necessary to be previously acquainted with the analysis of the fermentable substance, and of the products of the fermentation. We may lay down as an incontesible axiom, that, in all the operations of art and nature, nothing is created; an equal quantity of matter exists both before and after the experiment; the quality and quantity of the elements remain precisely the s; and nothing takes place beyond the changes and modifications in the combination of these elements. Upon this principle the whole art of performing chemical experiments
