292 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



U'ill be reached as a necessary consequence, for the intercourse stim- 

 ulates thought, and thought leads to work, and work leads to wider 

 usefulness. 



While in 1848, when the association was organized and the consti- 

 tution was adopted, there was a fair number of good scientific investi- 

 gators in this country, it is certain that in the half century that has 

 passed since then the number of investigators has increased very 

 largely, and naturally the amount of scientific work done at present 

 is very much greater than it was at that time. So great has been the 

 increase in scientific activity during recent years that we are apt to 

 think that by comparison scientific research is a new acquisition. In 

 fact there appears to be an impression abroad that in the world at 

 large scientific research is a relatively new thing, for which we of this 

 generation and our immediate predecessors are largely responsible. 

 Only a superficial knowledge of the history of science is necessary, 

 however, to show that the sciences have been developed slowly, and that 

 their beginnings are to be looked for in the very earliest times. Every- 

 thing seems to point to the conclusion that men have always been 

 engaged in efforts to learn more and more in regard to the world in 

 which they find themselves. Sometimes they have been guided by one 

 motive and sometimes by another, but the one great underlying motive 

 has been the desire to get a clearer and clearer understanding of the 

 universe. But besides this there has been the desire to find means of 

 increasing the comfort and happiness of the human race. 



A reference to the history of chemistry will serve to show how these 

 motives have operated side by side. One of the first great incentives 

 for working with chemical things was the thought that it was possible 

 to convert base metals like lead and copper into the so-called noble 

 metals, silver and gold. Probably no idea has ever operated as strongly 

 as this upon the minds of men to lead them to undertake chemical 

 experiments. It held control of intellectual men for centuries and it' 

 was not until about a hundred years ago that it lost its hold. It is 

 very doubtful if the purely scientific question whether one form of 

 matter can be transformed into another would have had the power to 

 control the activities of investigators for so long a time; and it is idle 

 to speculate upon this subject. It should, however, be borne in mind 

 that many of those who were engaged in this work were actuated by a 

 desire to put money in their purses — a desire that is by no means to 

 be condemned without reserve, and I mention it not for the purpose 

 of condemning it, but to show that a motive that we sometimes think 

 of as peculiarly modern is among the oldest known to man. 



While the alchemists were at work upon their problems, another 

 class of chemists were engaged upon problems of an entirely different 

 nature. The fact that substances obtained from various natural 



