THE CHEMISTRY OF TO-DAY. 597 



assertion be accepted as final evidence on this point, I ask atten- 

 tion to the important fact that the seat of the great new chemical 

 industries of the world is that country in which the greatest atten- 

 tion is paid to pure chemistry. As the result of much experience 

 in Germany, it has been found that those chemists who are best 

 versed in the pure science are the best fitted to go into the great 

 factories and conduct the chemical operations. Even in the tech- 

 nical schools in Germany the subject of chemistry is taught just 

 as it is in the universities, in such a way as to give the student as 

 much as possible of the pure science. If my practical brother 

 could make a tour of the great laboratories of the world, whether 

 in universities or in polytechnic schools, he would find that the 

 subjects under investigation in ninety-nine out of a hundred of 

 them are such as he would regard as in a high degree unpractical ; 

 and yet I say the experience of the world has shown that, where 

 the most of this unpractical work is done, there the most practical 

 results are reached. The testimony of chemists is unanimous on 

 this point. We are therefore led to the conclusion that the most 

 unpractical work is the most practical — a conclusion which I am 

 sure will stand the test of the closest examination. 



But I do not think that this last argument is needed to justify 

 the abstract chemical work of which I have been speaking. Man 

 can be improved in other ways than by ministering to his daily 

 bodily needs. He has higher needs, and some of these are minis- 

 tered to by enlarging the world of ideas. Every discovery is an ad- 

 dition to the world's stock of knowledge, and we are all gainers 

 by these discoveries. The gain is not as tangible as the material 

 ones, but it is none the less valuable. Is not the world better off 

 for its books, its works of art ? Take them away. Imagine the 

 result ! So it is with the results of scientific work. By the aid of 

 this work we are advancing toward clearer conceptions of the uni- 

 verse and our position in it. Stop the work, and intellectual death 

 must necessarily follow. The work must go on entirely independ- 

 ently of the question whether the results can be utilized at once 

 or not. We need more light ! Let us work for this. 



Prof. Lodge, assuming that light is an electrical disturbance, reasons that all 

 our present systems of making light artificially are wasteful and defective. We 

 want only a particular range of oscillations, but to obtain them we have to pro- 

 duce all the inferior ones leading up to them. The force thus expended is thrown 

 away. With his energy properly directed, a boy turning a handle could produce 

 as much real light as we get with all our present expenditure. The waste is worse 

 when we get light by combustion than with the electric lights, for then the air as 

 well as the fuel is consumed, and the low heat-rays that are thrown out cause 

 inconvenience as well as being wasteful. The light of glow-worms and of phos- 

 phorescence is produced without waste. We must learn to obtain light with 

 equal economy. 



