96 GERMAN SCIENCE ~ 
prosperity, and one in which their demeanour towards science 
can be most tellingly illustrated. Let me then briefly indicate 
to you the history of chemical science in Germany during the 
last hundred years. . 
At the beginning of the nineteenth century Germany was 
not as conspicuous in chemistry as either France or England. 
Modern scientific chemistry is dated by Frenchmen with much 
justification from the time of the great Lavoisier, whose 
career was tragically ended by the guillotine during the 
French revolution. Englishmen might be inclined to put 
their countryman John Dalton in the first position. But 
no like claim has, so far as I am aware, been made by 
Germany ; and though undoubtedly the science was cultivated 
in that land and many valuable discoveries were made there 
the nation was conspicuous neither by the eminence of its 
chemists nor by their number. The first commanding figure 
which appears in the modern history of German chemistry 
is that of Justus von Liebig. Of him and his services I shall 
speak directly, but for the moment I mention him as one 
who has left an authentic account of the state of chemical 
science in Germany at the beginning of its great epoch. One 
part of this account, entitled ‘The Condition of Chemistry 
in Prussia’,' is so interesting and so significant that I will 
venture to refer to it in some detail. 
Liebig’s paper is more of a diatribe than a description. 
He begins by exclaiming how inexplicable it must be to clear- 
sighted people that in Prussia, ‘a country to which a degree 
of intelligence and culture is ascribed such as is to be found 
in few others’, it is the Government itself which has not the _ 
most distant idea of the importance of chemistry and that 
all efforts of the teachers are wrecked by want of recognition 
on the part of those whose duty it is to provide for and 
1 ‘Der Zustand der Chemie in Preussen’, published in Liebig’s Anmalen 
der Chemie und Pharmacie, vol. xxxiv, p. 47 (1840). : 
