Ju-\L 2y, iyi6] 



NATURE 



5/1 



cooking food. Metallurgy, or the methods of ex- 

 tracting the metals from their ores, which is a branch 

 of chemistry, has thus been one of the greatest 

 factors in civilisation. Indeed, the successive dis- 

 coveries of the means of extracting metals, and out 

 of them fashioning weapons and tools, form recog- 

 nised landmarks throughout the development of 

 civilisation. Thus the age of stone has been followed 

 by the ages of copper, bronze, iron, and steel. The 

 -cience and the art of engineering, which attained to 

 such a vast development in the nineteenth centurj, 

 and of which the present century has already wit- 

 nessed such a new and wonderful development in the 

 mastery of the air, are wholly dependent on chemical 

 science, which has provided the engineer with the 

 chief materials for the construction of his tools, 

 engines, machines, and structures. 



The invention and development of explosives have 

 conferred on man undreamt-of powers of action, and 

 have raised his puny strength to that of a giant who 

 can move mountains. Without the use of explosives 

 we could not quarry for stone, mine for coal and 

 metallic ores, bore tunnels and build railways, or 

 carry out many of the great works necessary for the 

 modern complex civilisation of the present day. The 

 progress of engineering is thus absolutely dependent 

 upon the progress of chemistrj-. The high-speed tools, 

 the armour-plate, the aeroplanes and aeroplane 

 engines of to-day, have only been made possible by 

 successive advances in the application of chemical 

 science. If men have in past ages, as at the present 

 hour, made use of the discoveries and inventions of 

 the chemist and the engineer to compass their own 

 destruction, it is a question, not of chemistry and 

 engineering, but of the imperfect development of 

 national and international psychology. Or perhaps, 

 from the point of view of the angels, it may represent 

 but a fluctuating molecular turbulence in a statistically 

 harmonious system, just as most of our laws of physics 

 and chemistry, simple and harmonious as they appear 

 to us to be, are but the expressions of statistically 

 steady averages beneath which lie the wildest mole- 

 cular devilry and commotion. 



If we turn to the realm of art, we find that plastic 

 and pictorial art and architecture itself are'individually 

 bound up with the discoveries and inventions of 

 chemical craft and science. We may admire the 

 magnificent blue of an Egyptian enamel, the white 

 depth and the glorious hues of Chinese porcelain, 

 the mural decoration of a Roman .villa, or the splendid 

 colours of the Book of Kells or of the painting of a 

 Flemish master, but do we always realise that behind 

 the imaginative work of the artist lies a long and 

 laborious history of chemical craft and science? 



I have spoken of chemistry in its relation to 

 engineering and art. I shall not weary you with a 

 detailed account of chemical science in its relation 

 to the manifold material wants of modern civilisation. 

 There exists, however, scarcely a single branch of 

 industry that does not in some shape or form make 

 use of chemical craft and knowledge. We are de- 

 pendent upon these for paper, glass, porcelain, metals, 

 alloys, soap, dyes, drugs, disinfectants, perfumes, 

 etc., to mention only a few classes of common sub- 

 stances of daily use. 



A great man once said that one could measure the 

 civilisation of a nation by its consumption of sulphuric 

 acid. However that may be, the present century will 

 be dominated and characterised by the development 

 and application of chemical science, just as the nine- 

 teenth century was characterised by the enormous 

 development and progress of mechanical and engineer- 

 ing science. Germany alone of the nations of the 

 world has had the ability and prescience to foresee 



NO. 2435, VOL. 97] 



this. It is chemical science that has made the power 

 of the Germany of to-day, and however much we 

 may loathe and abhor the policy of those who rule 

 her, there is no gainsaying the fact that she repre- 

 sents a great and powertul force in material and 

 intellectual progress. Viewed quite apart from any 

 question concerning the morality of war in general 

 or of the present war in particular, Germany alone 

 amongst the nations has perceived to its full extent 

 that the problem of organising a nation lor attack or 

 defence is largely a question of the development and 

 organisation of chemical science and chemical in- 

 dustry. Previous to the war we failed to realise that 

 vital and fundamental fact. We may dislike war, but 

 we have to defend our honour. We have to take the 

 world as it is and to face realities. It may be stated 

 with a sense of the most solemn conviction that the 

 very life-blood of England to-day is sulphuric acid. 

 It is not a question of ethics or of polite political 

 philosophy. It is a question of life or death. Whether 

 we like it or not, without sulphuric acid and a few 

 other fundamental chemical substances the honour of 

 England would to-day be lying in the dust, and the 

 blood of our brave manhood would have been poured 

 out in vain, a tragic libation to the gods of vanity and 

 ignorance. 



But it is not in the grim necessities of war that I 

 would ask you to seek the paramount importance of 

 chemical science. Let us turn from the destruction of 

 life to the conservation and production of life, to life 

 itself. What do we find there? That life has chosen 

 chemical action as the mode of its material expres- 

 sion. We who consider ourselves the overlords of 

 creation are as dependent as the modest flowers be- 

 neath our feet upon the ever-recurrent ebb and flow 

 ! of chemical change. The green plant is, as Huxley 

 ; said, the fundamental capitalist, the producer of that 

 ; store of potential chemical energy on the setting free 

 j of which in the process of oxidation all life ultimately 

 \ depends. The struggle of life is the struggle for 

 1 chemical energy. 



Agriculture is indeed the fundamental industry of 

 man, as it is the fundamental chemical industry. It 

 ! is only by supplying the soil in increasing quantities 

 ; with the required amounts of potash salts, chemically 

 i combined nitrogen, and phosphates that the ever- 

 1 increasing population of the earth can be fed. The 

 progress of agriculture is dependent upon the applica- 

 tion of chemical science in ever-increasing measure. 

 This applies as much to the rearing and feeding of 

 j live-stock as to the growing of plant crops. A cow is a 

 chemical apparatus for the manufacture of milk or beef 

 j from grass and clover. For the efficient operation of 

 1 this chemical machine it is necessan,- to make the most 

 ! careful chemical study of the food or fodder which is 

 I supplied to it, and which it in its turn transforms into 

 1 food for ourselves. 



I A man, like any other animal, requires for the per- 

 I formance of his work a definite stock of chemical 

 energy, a definite diet consisting of certain deter- 

 minate chemical substances, such as carbo- 

 ; hydrates, fats, proteids, salts, and water. The amount 

 and cxjmposition of his diet must be most carefully- 

 adjusted to the physical and mental work which he 

 has to perform. The study of national diet from the 

 point of view of chemical physiology is more important 

 to the statesman and the political philosopher than 

 many matters over which they are apt to wrangle and 

 debate. 



The cure and the prevention of disease def>end ulti- 

 mately on a profound understanding of the conditions 

 which control and regulate these chemical changes. 

 It is perhaps needless to dwell on the advances already 

 made. Chemical science has supplied the physician 



