92 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



hundred years the scientific investigation of chemical and 

 electric phenomena has taught us to disentangle the 

 intricate web of the elementary forces of nature, to lay 

 bare the many interwoven threads, to break up the equili- 

 brium of actual existence, and to bring within our power 

 and under our control forces of undreamed-of magnitude. 

 3. The great inventions of former ages were made in countries 



Relation of 



science and where practical life, industry, and commerce were most 



practical 



advanced ; but the great inventions of the last fifty years 

 in chemistry and electricity and the science of heat have 

 been made in the scientific laboratory : the former were 

 stimulated by practical wants ; the latter themselves pro- 

 duced new practical requirements, and created new spheres 

 of labour, industry, and commerce. Science and know- 

 ledge have in the course of this century overtaken the 

 march of practical life in many directions. 1 A confused 



ing the history of the learned especially medical substances by 



societies as well as the rare cases in chemical synthesis. The occupa- 



which highest scientific genius is tion with this problem under A. W. 



allied with practical skill in the Hofmann's instructions led Perkiu 



same person, whether the cultiva- in 1856 to the discovery of the first 



tion of research for its own sake anilin colour (Mauvein, see 'Ber- 



should not preferably be kept dis- ichte der deutschen chemischen 



tinct from its hasty application. Gesellschaft,' Xo. 17, p. 3391 . 



This is the view held by many great Leblanc's discovery how to make 



thinkers abroad. In England the carbonate of soda from salt, for 



opposite view has frequently im- which a prize had been offered by 



peded the progress of pure science. the Paris Academy uuder Napoleon, 



1 A few examples may suffice. led to the enormous development 



The discovery by Oersted and Am- of the sulphuric acid industry in 



pere of Electromagnetism (1819, England and on the Continent. 



1820) led at once to the idea of Liebig foretold in 1840 the recovery 



electrical telegraphy : the first tele- of sulphur from the waste of chemi- 



graph over considerable distances cal works and the effect on the 



was constructed by Gauss and sulphur mines of Sicily, fifty years 



Weber (see ' Wilhelm Weber,' before this process was satisfactorily 



Breslau, 1893, p. 26, &c.) The carried out (see Liebig's familiar 



artificial preparation of an organic ' Letters on Chemistry,' 1st ed., 1843, 



substance by Wohler in 1828 led at pp. 22, 31, &c.) But the greatest 



once to many attempts at prepar- of all industries created in the 



ing expensive organic compounds laboratory was probably that of 



