Excerpt from The Philosophical Magazine and Journal, Vol. 57: Comprehending the Various Branches of Science, the Liberal and Fine Arts, Geology, Agriculture, Manufactures, and Commerce; For January, February, March, April, May, and June, 1821
Sir, - For commenting upon the discordant opinions which were given on the trial of Messrs. Severn and Co. relative to some of the properties of oil, and which have been put on record in the last Number of the Philosophical Magazine, it is unnecessary for me to offer any apology to those gentlemen the correctness of whose doctrines I have presumed to call in question. Opinions upon scientific subjects, or indeed upon any other, which are publicly promulgated, become public property, and are open to the observations and criticisms of any one who chooses to descant upon them; and in freely canvassing such opinions, it is always to be understood that the doctrines only are criticised and not the persons advancing them; nothing personal is meant: that estimation in which, as men of science, they are so highly held, and that respect to which they have become so justly entitled, and which no one feels more warmly than the individual who is now addressing you, are not in the slightest degree lessened by the casual advancement of doctrines which on examination may not be found perfectly tenable. The question at issue, however, is not the truth or falsehood of an hypothesis; but it is as to the existence of facts, facts that no doubt may and will be clearly proved to the satisfaction, or I should rather say to the conviction, of all parties. Hypotheses or theories may be disputed, but the facts themselves cannot be disproved; and whether oil is decomposable below a certain heat, whether it gives out inflammable vapour, and whether it is easily or difficultly heated, may be as clearly proved, if the trial is made unbiased by party feeling, as any problem in mathematics.
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