viii PREFACE 



practical accomplishments and has been eager 

 to read of a new vaccine which rids humanity 

 of some deadly scourge, of a new fuel or a new 

 engine, and even of the prodigious store of 

 energy lurking within the atom, which may 

 some time be set free in the interest of a more 

 stupendous industrialism. 



However, while we are all obliged to keep step 

 in this great social march, there are many of the 

 more individualistic and the more philosophical 

 sort who look back longingly to the days of less 

 elaborate manufacture, when each synthesis 

 could be watched through its various stages, 

 and sometimes even be performed, by the ama- 

 teur. To such people, who are interested not so 

 much in the products of science as in its meth- 

 ods, I am offering this glimpse of the inside of 

 the scientist's workshop, — ^his habits, his tools, 

 and his raw materials. 



Once as I wandered through an old grave- 

 yard in Watertown, Massachusetts, I read in 

 the epitaph of an ancient divine that "he was 

 a careful and painful preacher." I do not much 

 doubt that this was true even in the modern 

 sense, for it was once the fashion to show re- 

 spect for the graver problems of life by a pon- 

 derous style and a solemn mien. Now the modes 



