This Theory [the Oxygen Theory] Is Not

Thus, While I Thought Myself Employed Only In Forming A Nomenclature, And While I Proposed To Myself Nothing More Than To Improve The Chemical Language, My Work Transformed Itself By Degrees, Without My Being Able To Prevent It, Into A Treatise Upon The Elements Of Chemistry.

This Theory [the Oxygen Theory] Is Not As I Have Heard It Described, That Of The French Chemists, It Is Mine (elle Est La Mienne); It Is A Property Which I Claim From My Contemporaries And From Posterity.

Nothing Is Born, Nothing Dies.

We May Lay It Down As An Incontestible 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 Same; And Nothing Takes Place Beyond Changes And Modifications In The Combination Of These Elements. Upon This Principle The Whole Art Of Performing Chemical Experiments Depends: We Must Always Suppose An Exact Equality Between The Elements Of The Body Examined And Those Of The Products Of Its Analysis.

One Succeeds In Obtaining An Equivalent Production At A Lower Price By Improving The Arts, Trades And Agriculture And By Developing The Physical And Moral Qualities Of Workers, Farmers And Craftsmen.