IDEAS OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY 7 



Turning now to inorganic chemistry, we find it completely 

 overshadowed by its younger rival: its votaries are few and 

 disheartened. I think that I do no injustice in asserting that, 

 for most students, the mention of this study conveys no idea 

 but that of laborious quantitative analysis for commercial 

 and mineralogical purposes. That subdivision which corre- 

 sponds more closely to organic chemistry, the description 

 and natural history of the elements and their compounds, is 

 generally taught chemical students at the very beginning of 

 their course of study, and must naturally appear to be ele- 

 mentary and of least importance and interest. They may 

 indeed also recollect dimly some few introductory lectures, 

 given as a necessary evil and listened to with imperfect com- 

 prehension, about the atomic and molecular theories, the na- 

 ture of reactions and the physical properties of compounds, 

 but these also are for the most part hidden in the mists of the 

 past. 



Do not understand me as saying that all these subjects 

 have not had skillful investigators during the last thirty years. 

 This is by no means the case; we shall come across many re- 

 vered names in the course of our review. The trouble is that 

 their work has not received that attention from the whole 

 community of chemists, which would make it as commonly 

 known as are the achievements of organic synthesis, and place 

 it upon its proper pedestal for public admiration. Why should 

 we know less about silicon, iron, and sulphur, than we know 

 about carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen? Why should 

 we care more about the color, melting-point, and boiling- 

 point of a compound than we do about its behavior towards 

 other manifestations of energy beside light and heat? Above 

 all, why should we confine ourselves to the internal consti- 

 tution of molecules, when we should also concern ourselves 

 with their behavior toward each other, with those mysteries 



