THE FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS OF PHYSICAL 

 CHEMISTRY 1 



IN commencing this course of lectures, whose subject- 

 matter and title are avowedly new to the American student, 

 I feel the need of giving some justification, of presenting 

 some reason why I should seek to add one more round to the 

 ladder of learning already so alarmingly long. To-day, the 

 cry against specialization is increasingly raised; and we now 

 and then hear voices wailing for the good old times, when an 

 Admirable Crichton could boast of knowing something of 

 all things knowable, and when a Pico della Miranqlola could 

 publish his readiness to dispute against all comers, "de 

 omnibus rebus." 



But wishing these times back will not recall them. Loosed 

 from the leash of rhetoric and dogmatism, the pursuers of 

 knowledge have spread in all directions over the field, each 

 so eager on his own particular trail that he has no eye for the 

 discoveries of his neighbor; he forgets, indeed, that there is 

 need of keeping in touch to the right and left, lest important 

 clues be passed unobserved. No wonder if the bewildered 

 spectators should think that the whole pack has gone mad, 

 and that the majority, at least, have been diverted, by their 

 own self-sufficiency, from the noble quarry upon which they 

 had been set. Nevertheless, we may already see a change 

 in their methods: they are shaping their courses parallel to 

 each other, they strive to keep abreast and neighbors in- 

 stead of running apart; they carefully scan the ground 

 between themselves, that nothing may lurk there unseen. 



1 Introductory lecture of a course probably given at Clark University in 1889. 



