CHEMICAL INVESTIGATIONS BICHAKDS. 215 



fancy by human caretakers, and she sees the universe to-day through 

 human eyes. 



The diversified orig:in of chemistry has shaped the varied con- 

 temporary aj)plication of the science and its many-sided destiny in 

 the years to come. Chemistry has wide theoretical bearings, but at 

 the same time is concerned with the ciiidest and most obvious affairs 

 of manufacture and everyday life. Chemical knowledge must form 

 an essential part of any intelligent philosophy of the nature of the 

 universe, and alone can satisfy one manifestation of that intense in- 

 tellectual curiosity wliich to-day, no less than of old, yearns to 

 understand more of the fundamental nature of things. On the other 

 hand, rational applied science to-day must follow in the footsteps of 

 the swiftly advancing strides of theory. The laws of chemistry can 

 not be adequately applied until they have been discovered. Chemi- 

 cal insight, concerned with the intimate changes of the substances 

 which are all about us as well as within our bodies, furnishes us with 

 the only means for employing material things to the best advantage. 

 Chemical processes appertain in large degree to medicine, hygiene, 

 agriculture, and manufacture; these processes depend upon laws of 

 which the perfect understanding is essential to the full development 

 of most of the activities of civilized life. 



However oblivious we may be of the inexorable laws of chemistry, 

 we are ever under their sway. Our consciousness is housed in a 

 mortal shell, consisting primarily of compounds of less than a score 

 of chemical elements. The physiological behavior of our bodies is 

 inevitably associated with the chemical changes or reactions among 

 highly intricate chemical unions of these few elements. The driving 

 tendency or immediate cause of the reactions which support life is 

 to be found in the chemical affinities and respective concentrations 

 of the several substances. Our bodies are chemical machines, from 

 which we can not escape except by quitting our earthly life. The 

 nature of the chemical elements and their compounds therefore pre- 

 sents one of the most interesting and important of all problems of- 

 fered to mankind. That the study of chemical problems of life is 

 consistent with the study of man in a biological, a psychological, or 

 a spiritual sense is obvious. To-day the epigram " The proper study 

 of mankind is man " must be greatly broadened in order to corre- 

 spond with modem knowledge. 



These words regarding the origin and significance of chemistry- 

 serve as an introduction. Your committee has honored me by the 

 request that I should tell you something about the object and out- 

 come of my own endeavors, and these could be made clear only by 

 reviewing the peculiar nature of chemistry. In my case the in- 

 centive to the pursuit of science was primarily that intense, curiosity 



