Berzelius's merit and fame because of his theory of proportions which has been extended to all chemical relations ought not by themselves to stand in the way of criticizing the poverty of the theory; but a more pressing reason for doing so must be the circumstance that the merit which one side of a science deserves (such as Newton's) normally lends authority to a whole unfounded structure of bad categories associated with it, and it is precisely this metaphysics which is proclaimed and circulated with the greatest pretension.