The Evolution of the Sciences 



Such was the state of ideas when Berthelot, 

 in 1851, entered as Bolard's assistant at the 

 College de France on a scientific career destined 

 to be most prolific. He placed at the service 

 of science not only technical skill and power of 

 work in a degree rarely combined, but the true 

 characteristic of his genius resided in a faculty 

 still more rarely found in the laboratory 

 a thorough philosophical education and a 

 mind inclined towards generalisation. His 

 philosophic ideas led him to perceive a priori 

 the weakness o.? a doctrine that restricted 

 chemistry to the function of an analytical science 

 and erected insuperable barriers between the 

 work of Nature and the work of the laboratory. 

 It is true that organic syntheses had been made 

 before Berthelot, but to him belongs the honour, 

 one of the highest in his scientific career, of 

 erecting into a system and a doctrine what 

 before was merely chance and good luck. 



He created order in organic chemistry by 

 establishing, experimentally, the connection of 

 the different series of bodies belonging to it; 

 but it was chiefly by showing, in numerous cases, 

 the possibility of passing from inorganic matter 



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