History, Classification, and Nomenclature

In 1787, the Academie Royale des Sciences in Paris published a book entitled Meth-ode de nomenclature chimique The front page names four authors Louis-Bemard Guyton de Morveau, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, Claude Louis Berthollet, and Antoine Francois Fourcroy. In this book, one encounters the first comprehensive classification of chemical substances according to composition in the history of chemistry. Taking into account the stature of its authors, its proximity in time to Lavoisier s Trade elementaire de chimie from 1789, and the fact that it first appeared in a book on chemical nomenclature, this classification immediately raises a variety of questions and issues. 

Much has been written on the Methode de nomenclature chimique, and much has been said in praise of the Tableau of the Methode and its outstanding significance in the history of early modem chemistry. But despite this unanimously shared assessment and appreciation, no thorough and exhaustive analysis of the Tableau s classification of chemical substances has been presented by any historian of science up to now. Only the first column of the table, the column for simple substances, was hitherto subjected to closer inspection. Thus our analysis of the table s classification cannot build on the results of earlier investigations, but has to start from scratch. This means we first have to provide an overview on the table to which we can refer and return whenever desirable in the course of the subsequent investigations. In what follows we will first describe the arrangement of the table and then analyze its classification s formal features. 

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