Although the principal facts relating to the acetous acid are well known, yet numerical exactitude is still wanting, till furnished by more exact experiments than any hitherto performed; wherefore I shall not enlarge any farther upon the subject. It is sufficiently shown by what has been said, that the constitution of all the vegetable acids and oxyds is exactly conformable to the formation of vinegar; but farther experiments are necessary to teach us the proportion of the constituent elements in all these acids and oxyds. We may easily perceive, however, that this part of chemistry, like all the rest of its divisions, makes rapid progress towards perfection, and that it is already rendered greatly more simple than was formerly believed.
[29] The word Wine, in this chapter, is used to signify the liquor produced by the vinous fermentation, whatever vegetable substance may have been used for obtaining it.--E.
_Of the Formation of Neutral Salts, and of their different Bases._
We have just seen that all the oxyds and acids from the animal and vegetable kingdoms are formed by means of a small number of simple elements, or at least of such as have not hitherto been susceptible of decomposition, by means of combination with oxygen; these are azote, sulphur, phosphorus, charcoal, hydrogen, and the muriatic radical[30]. We may justly admire the simplicity of the means employed by nature to multiply qualities and forms, whether by combining three or four acidifiable bases in different proportions, or by altering the dose of oxygen employed for oxydating or acidifying them. We shall find the means no less simple and diversified, and as abundantly productive of forms and qualities, in the order of bodies we are now about to treat of.
Acidifiable substances, by combining with oxygen, and their consequent conversion into acids, acquire great susceptibility of farther combination; they become capable of uniting with earthy and metallic bodies, by which means neutral salts are formed. Acids may therefore be considered as true _salifying_ principles, and the substances with which they unite to form neutral salts may be called _salifiable_ bases: The nature of the union which these two principles form with each other is meant as the subject of the present chapter.