394 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



definite professional appointments or are otherwise more or less actively 

 engaged in the work of the professional chemist. A profession surely 

 stands in need of no apology which includes and has included in its 

 ranks, within such a limited period, such a host of distinguished mem- 

 bers. 



So far, moreover, from his professional eminence and usefulness 

 being made a matter of reproach to the scientific man, it should con- 

 stitute rightly a claim to his higher consideration ; and, far from being 

 accounted a disparagement, should be held as an addition to his scien- 

 tific standing. In the professions most allied to our own on the one 

 side and on the other, this is well recognized. The physician and the 

 engineer are not merely students of pathology and of mechanics, how- 

 ever important may have been their contributions to pathology and 

 mechanics respectively, but they are the distinguished craftsmen in 

 their respective arts. And, whether or not they may have made im- 

 portant contributions to pure science, their rank as eminent scientific 

 men is everywhere and rightly conceded to them. A lucky chance 

 happening to any professional man may indeed bring him to the front, 

 but no succession of lucky chances can ever happen that will of them- 

 selves prove adequate to keeping him there. Great qualities are ever 

 necessary to sustain great professional positions ; and to be for years 

 one of the foremost in a scientific profession is of itself at least as sub- 

 stantial an evidence of scientific attainment as is the publication of a 

 memoir on some minute point, say of anatomy, or chemistry, or hydro- 

 dynamics, for example. And it is so recognized, and very properly 

 recognized, even in quarters where pure science admittedly reigns 

 supreme. Leading engineers and leading physicians and surgeons are 

 every year admitted into the Royal Society, not on account of the 

 importance attaching to any special contributions they may have made 

 to mechanical or pathological science, but mainly because of their emi- 

 nence in their several professions, in which to be eminent is of itself 

 an evidence of scientific character and of extensive scientific knowl- 

 edge. It may indeed be taken as beyond question that, to obtain and 

 retain a leading position in a scientific profession needs, among other 

 things, the possession of high scientific attainments. I say among other 

 things, for without moral qualities in a notable degree, sympathy, en- 

 durance, courage, judgment, and good faith, no such professional suc- 

 cess is conceivable. Professional eminence is the expression necessarily 

 of scientific ability, but not of scientific ability alone. The self-en- 

 grossing science of the student has to be humanized by its association 

 with the cares and wants, and the disappointments and successes, of 

 an outside world. — Chemical News. 



