“The suggestion by Mayow and by Newton, that the phenomena of chemical combination depend upon peculiar attractions, which exist between the minute particles of different bodies, ought perhaps to be regarded as the first successful attempt to lay the foundation of chemistry as a science, and to distinguish it from the other branches of natural philosophy. The attention given to chemistry by some of the more distinguished members of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, the delivery of lectures on this subject in the French language by the elder Lemery; the curious experiments of Homberg on phosphorus, metals and salts; the discovery of the remarkable effects produced upon various bodies by the burning glass; and the ingenious method conceived by Geoffroy of framing tables, which should exhibit the relative degrees of chemical affinity between different substances,—had all contributed to render the pursuits of chemistry more generally popular in France than they appear to have been at the same period in any other country of Europe.”

— John Thomson (1832), An Account of the Life, Lectures and Writings of William Cullen, Volume One (pg. 36) [2]