Lavoisier vs Priestley: who truly seized the air?

You isolated the gas, Joseph, but you called it 'dephlogisticated air' and never understood what you held.

I held it in my hand three years before you weighed it, Antoine — discovery is the deed, not the accounting.

Discovery unexplained is treasure buried; I gave it a name, a measure, and a chemistry the world could stand upon.

And yet you clung to your scales while your Revolution took your head — nature answers to no committee, and neither did I.