66 The Higher Usefulness of Science 



of the adequacy of oxygen and hydrogen to produce 

 water as soon as the quantitative relation between 

 water and its constituents was definitely established 

 a century ago, as are present-day chemists with their 

 much greater knowledge of the atomic and electronic 

 structure of oxygen and hydrogen. 



And finally, of supreme importance for us is the fact 

 that the product, water, is a revelation of some of the 

 latent capacities of oxygen and hydrogen. We are 

 certain that these two substances, operating on each 

 other, are able to give origin to this third substance. 

 But how are we certain of this? Entirely because 

 water has been observed, times without number, to come 

 forth from the two gases ; and similarly the gases have 

 been observed to come forth from water. Could we 

 imagine a chemist who never saw or heard of water or 

 any of the substances chemically similar to it, we may 

 be sure a whole lifetime of study of oxygen and hydro- 

 gen would not enable him to foresee the production of 

 water by their union. 



Take another simple case of genesis, this time from 

 the field of physics, the production of so-called artifi- 

 cial magnets. We will note two ways in which such 

 magnets are produced, namely, by breaking into two 

 or more pieces a magnetized steel bar, each piece be- 

 coming a magnet, and by making an alloy of copper, 

 aluminum and manganese (Heusler's alloy). The 

 molecular theory of magnetism is apparently generally 

 accepted by physicists as an explanation of magnetic 



