500 Professor W. Cliandler Roberts- Austen [March 15, 



liability to tarnish, and we know that the rarer metals are like rarer 

 virtues, and have singular power in enduing their more ordinary- 

 associates with firmness, elasticity, strength and endurance. On the 

 other hand, some of the less known metals appear to be mere " things " 

 which do not exist for themselves, but only for the sake of other 

 metals to which they can- be united. This may, however, only seem 

 to be the case because we as yet know so little about them. The 

 question naturally arises, how can the analogies between organic and 

 inorganic bodies now be traced ? I agree with my colleague at the 

 Ecole des Mines of Paris, Prof. Urbain Le Verrier, in thinking that 

 it is possible * to study the biology, the anatomy, and even the 

 pathology of metals. 



The anatomy of metals — that is, their structure and framework — 

 is best examined by the aid of the microscope, but if we wish to study 

 the biology and pathology of metals, the method of autographic 

 pyrometry, which I brought before you in a Friday Evening lecture 

 delivered in 1892, will render admirable service, for, just as in 

 biological and pathological phenomena vital functions and changes of 

 tissue are accompanied by a rise or fall in temperature, so molecular 

 changes in metals are attended with an evolution or absorption of 

 heat. With the aid of the recording pyrometer we now " take 

 the temperature " of a mass of metal or alloy in which molecular 

 disturbance is suspected to lurk, as surely as a doctor does that of a 

 patient in whom febrile symptoms are manifest. 



It has, moreover, long been known that we can submit a metal or 

 an alloy in its normal state to severe stress, record its power of 

 endurance, and then, by allowing it to recover from fatigue, enable 

 it to regain some, at least, of its original strength. The human 

 analogies of metals are really very close indeed, for, as is the case 

 with our own mental efforts, the internal molecular work which is 

 done in metals often strengthens and invigorates them. Certain 

 metals have a double existence, and according to circumstances, their 

 behaviour may be absolutely harmful or entirely beneficial. The 

 dualism we so often recognise in human life becomes allotropism in 

 metals, and they, strangely enough, seem to be restricted to a single 

 form of existence if they are absolutely free from contamination, for 

 probably an absolutely pure metal cannot pass from a normal to an 

 allotropic state. Last, it may be claimed that some metals possess 

 attributes which are closely allied to moral qualities, for, in their 

 relations with other elements, they often display an amount of 

 discrimination and restraint that would do credit to sentient beings. 



Close as this resemblance is, I am far from attributing conscious- 

 ness to metals, as their atomic changes result from the action of 

 external agents, while the conduct of conscious beings is not deter- 

 mined from without, but from within. I have, however, ventured to 

 offer the introduction of this lecture in its present form, because any 



* ' La Metallurgie en France,' 1894, p. 2. 



