Popular Chemistrv. 95 



But one surely has a right to expect that the thoughtful few, 

 " the saving remnant,'' will find in the appreciation of the pn/i- 

 ciple itself, a mental satisfaction full and complete in its degree. 

 — And whether any particular general principle or law of nature 

 be won by the labours of a worker in the domain of Chemistry. 

 of Zoology, of Political Science, of Theology, or any other of 

 the much overlapping but conventionally recognized divisions 

 of this immense field of research — co extensive with the uni- 

 verse of matter and mind — every thinker will yearn to be made 

 acquainted with it ; every true man will wish to add it to his 

 treasure-trove. 



So far as any poor attempts of my own are concerned, and 

 so far as I have welcomed and approved the attempts of others 

 in this direction, these have aimed at making clear the funda- 

 mental principles which have been discovered in the domain of 

 chemistry, so that they should be a part of the common stock 

 of natural knowledge won by man. A manufacturing chemist, 

 an analytical chemist, has need of a thousand and one details 

 of knowledge, not only of chemistry proper, but of mechanics 

 and what not, that he may successfully prosecute his craft., for 

 he is a craftsman, x-^s, a t-;7z/?jr;//^7;/ he is distinguished from his 

 fellow men ; as a student of nature he is ojie with them, ?'.t',, 

 provided that he is a thinking man at all, which is by no means 

 necessar}' ; for- even the successful chemist is no more necessarily 

 a student than the successful builder of electric motors is a 

 Clerk-Maxwell, or a Faraday, or a Lord Raleigh. Now, the one 

 feature in common which all efforts known to me to popularize 

 chemical science have had, is the apathy with which they have 

 been received. On learning that a certain series of lectures on 

 chemistry, delivered by Professor Lassar-Cohn in Germany 

 (Konigsberg) had been received with marked favour, had been 

 published again and again, edition after edition, and had finally 

 been translated into English by no less well known a chemist 

 than Professor Pattison-Muir, I hastened to procure a copy 

 of the volume, feeling hopeful that at last the art of presenting 

 scientific truth in taking garb had been discovered. The result 



