PRESENT PROBLEMS OF ORGANIC CHEMISTRY 



BY WILLIAM ALBERT NOYES 



[William Albert Noyes, Chief Chemist of the National Bureau of Standards, Wash- 

 ington, D. C. b. November 6, 1857, near Independence, Iowa. A.B. Iowa Col- 

 lege, 1879; S.B. ibid. 1879; Ph.D. Johns Hopkins University, 1882; Graduate 

 scholarship, Johns Hopkins University, 1881-82; student in Munich, 1889. 

 Professor of Chemistry, University of Tennessee, 1883-86; Professor of Chemis- 

 try, Rose Polytechnic Institute, 1886-1903. Member of Indiana Academy of 

 Sciences (President, 1904); American Chemical Society (Editor since 1902, Sec- 

 retary since 1903); Society of Chemical Industry; Deutschen Chemischen Gesell- 

 schaft. Author of Organic Chemistnj for the Laboratory; Elements of Qualitative 

 Analysis; Text-book of Organic Chemistry, and many scientific papers.] 



THERE is a strong tendency on the part of some chemists, at the 

 present time, to claim that chemical science in the true sense includes 

 only such portions of our knowledge as can be stated in accurate 

 mathematical terms. One distinguished representative of this school 

 of chemistry has said, " It is not in the province of science to explain 

 phenomena," and another has written, " It is not a part of its ultimate 

 object [i. e., of natural science] to acquire knowledge in regard to 

 mentally conceived existences, such as the atoms of matter, or the 

 particles of luminiferous ether, which are of such a magnitude and 

 character as to lie far beyond the limits of human conception." I think 

 that nearly all of those now actively engaged in working over the 

 problems of organic chemistry would dissent strongly from these 

 statements. Long experience in dealing with the cumulative, non- 

 mathematical evidence upon which our knowledge of chemical struc- 

 ture is founded has led to a very firm conviction that human know- 

 ledge is not bounded by the limits of sense-perception. We are in- 

 clined rather to the view that, while there are, undoubtedly, many 

 things which will always remain beyond any direct cognizance of 

 our senses, yet, so far as these have a real existence, we may in the 

 end secure, regarding them, very practical and positive knowledge. 

 It is impossible to conceive that those theories with regard to struc- 

 ture which have guided the work of thousands of chemists for the 

 last fifty years do not in some measure express the actual truth 

 with regard to atoms and their relation to each other in organic 

 compounds. 



Let us follow, for a few moments, in very brief outline, the steps 

 which have led to the present standpoint. So far as the matters which 

 interest us most are concerned, there was practically no knowledge of 

 organic chemistry before the nineteenth century. The first steps were, 

 of course, the preparation of pure substances and the development 

 of accurate methods of analysis. In both of these fields Liebig was the 

 great master. The formulae which were calculated were, at first, of 



