THE LIFE-WORK OF A CHEMIST.* 



By Sir Henry E. Rosooe, F. R. S., Prendenf. 



In askiug- myself what subject I could briug before you ou the pres- 

 ent occasion, I thought I could not do better than point out by one 

 example what a chemist may do for mankind. And in choosing this 

 theme for my discourse I found myself in no want of material, for 

 amongst the various aspects of scientific activity there is surely none 

 which, whether in its most recondite forms or in those most easily un- 

 derstood, have done more to benefit humanity than those which have 

 their origin in my own special study of chemistry. I desired to show 

 what one chemist may accomplish, a man devoted heart and soul to the 

 investigation of nature, a type of the ideal man of science — whose ex- 

 ample may stimulate even the feeblest amongst us to walk in his foot- 

 steps if only for a short distance, whose life is a consistent endeavor to 

 seek after truth if haply he may find it, whose watchwords are simplic- 

 ity, faithfulness, and industry, and whose sole ambition is to succeed 

 in widening the pathway of knowledge so that following generations of 

 wayfarers may find their journeys lightened and their dangers lessened. 



Such men are not uncommon amongst the ranks of distinguished 

 chemists. I might have chosen as an example the life and labors of 

 your some time townsman, Joseph Priestley, had not this theme been 

 already treated by Professor Huxley, in a manner I can not approach, 

 on the occasion of the inauguration of the statute which stands hard by. 

 Today however I will select another name, that of a man still living, 

 the great French chemist, Pasteur. 



As a chemist Pasteur began life, as a chemist he is ending it. For 

 although, as I shall hope to point out, his most important researches 

 have entered upon fields hitherto tilled with but scanty success by the 

 biologist, yet in his hands, by the application of chemical methods, they 

 have yielded a most bountiful harvest of new facts of essential service 

 to the well-being and progress of the human race. 



And after all, the first and obvious endeavor of ever3^ cultivator of 

 science ought to be to render service of this kind. For although it is 



* An address delivered to the members of tbe Birmingham and Midland Institute^ 



in the Town Kail, Birmingham, on October 7, 1889. (Nature, October 10, 1889, vol. 



XL, pp. 578-583.) 



491 



