November 6, 1919] 



NATURE 



221 



Fischer's expression; but physiologists are still 

 far from being sufficiently schooled in our science 

 and progress has been chiefly due to men such 

 as Emil Fischer, who have had sympathy with 

 biological problems and been alive to the 

 fact that it is desirable to walk before running. 

 It is strange that few chemists have biological 

 leanings — but the biological is still further re- 

 moved than the chemical from the mathematical 

 habit of mind. 



The chief feature of progress in later years has 

 been the ongrowth of the physical school. This 

 has had both its advantages and its disadvantages 

 — for whilst we have been led to widen our vision 

 and increase our grip on the philosophy of our 

 subject, we have lost in manipulative skill, as we 

 have given inadequate attention to the develop- 

 ment of method and technique. This probably is 

 one of the chief causes of our comparative failure 

 on the industrial side. Though based on analysis, 

 chemistry is mainly a constructive, practical 

 science : our success has been in proportion to 

 the extent to which we have been able to confirm 

 analytic by synthetic results. The man who does 

 always gets ahead of the man who doesn't — of 

 the man who merely seeks to explain ; though the 

 latter is often more useful than is supposed in 

 controlling practice. Still it is because fingers 

 and artistry come first in the practice of 

 chemistry, that the chemist proper is not and 

 , cannot often be a mathematician. The superior 

 value of the preparative side has been so brought 

 home to us during the war, that it is to be hoped 

 that full attention will now be given to its 

 development. 



Our ill-balanced bookish system of examina- 

 tions is one of the main causes of the incomplete 

 practical training chemists have received of late 

 years ; we have yet to teach the real value of books, 

 that they are meant for constant reference ; to 

 force students to memorise them is the worst of 

 policies : thoughtful, dextrous fingers and know- 

 ledge of materials are the chemise's chief needs. 



Much progress has been made, on the physical 

 side, in correlating properties with structure. 



Also great attention has been paid to the problems 

 of solutions : unfortunately the men who have 

 dealt with this latter side of chemistry have not 

 been working chemists — in fact, scarcely chemists 

 at all — and the pseudo-mathematical treatment 

 they have introduced has often savoured far too 

 much of dogma. The result has been to introduce 

 an unscientific, partial habit of mind into our 

 subject. We are strangely behind in having no 

 proper, accepted theory of chemical change in 

 general. Our elementary text-books too are 

 behind the times — full of half-truths and super- 

 ficial when not inaccurate : there is no lack of 

 detail but little philosophy and still less logic. 

 Chemistry is the most fundamental of the sciences, 

 the one by means of which it is alone possible to 

 teach the principles and practice of scientific 

 method in their entirety — and yet chemists are 

 rarely trained to be masters of method. 



To make chemistry a truly philosophical 

 science, for the guidance of students, we need a 

 man of giant mind, well versed in practice, who 

 will survey and weigh the facts and give sym- 

 pathetic consideration* to all hypotheses, then 

 summarise the situation in broad and simple 

 terms which all can understand. Fitzgerald was 

 a man of the type I have in mind. 



Certainly the progress made during the fifty 

 years is astounding — the extent of our collective 

 knowledge is extraordinary. But we must be on 

 our guard — there are too many "bits of chemist " 

 about : the most pretentious member of the 

 species is of modern invention — the " research 

 chemist." No chemist is a chemist who is not 

 fully imbued with the spirit of inquiry. Not a 

 little of the work that is now called research is 

 of a trivial character ; the majority are incapable 

 of original effort and far more careful direction 

 of advanced work is required. If care be not 

 taken, " research " will become a word of re- 

 proach. The effort of the future must be to 

 produce the whole chemist — the man who will 

 know his subject and be ever careful and modest, 

 both in word and deed, being possessed by 

 scientific lyiethod. 



THE DISCOVERY OF CHEMICAL ELEMENTS SINCE 1869. 



By Prof. H. B. Dixon, F.R.S., and H. Stephen, M.Sc. 



A GLANCE at the history of the chemical 

 -'^ elements reveals the fact that no fewer than 

 fifty-three of them were recognised so early as 

 1818, and since that time some thirty more have 

 been discovered. The search for new elements 

 between 1818 and 1869 represents an empirical 

 programme without considerations of marked 

 theoretical interest, and the investigations were 

 directed more particularly to an examination of 

 minerals. The chief results were the isolation of 

 new metallic elements, and the work of the great 

 master, Berzelius, stands out pre-eminently 

 during this period, and his quantitative work 

 surely paved the way for future investigations. 

 NO. 2610, VOL. 104] 



The later period extending over the past fifty 

 years marks out a new era in the history of the 

 chemical elements, inasmuch as it opened with 

 the discovery of the periodicity of the elements in 

 connection with their atomic weights. The 

 elaboration of the system in its final form was 

 due to Mendeldeff in 1869, although Newlands 

 had foreshadowed such a system in his law of 

 octaves (1863). 



Mendeleeff's system had a profound effect in 

 bringing about radical changes in respect of the 

 atomic weights of certain elements, notably beryl- 

 lium, uranium, and indium; and in affording pre- 

 dictions of the existence and properties of new 



