NATURE 



n 



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1885 



THE WHOLE DUTY OF A CHEMIST 



ON the 6th instant there was a meeting at the rooms 

 of the Chemical Society in the afternoon, and a 

 dinner in the evening, to celebrate the grant of a Royal 

 Charter to an Institute of Chemistry. 



The stated object of the Institute is to do for chemists 

 what has been done for the members of different pro- 

 fessions and trades by such bodies as the College of 

 Physicians, the College of Surgeons, the old Guilds, and 

 the modern Trades Unions. 



This is possibly a very desirable thing to do, but to the 

 student of pure science the creation of the new cor- 

 poration possesses no other interest than that which 

 results from the consideration of its prospective influ- 

 ence on the progress of science. Indeed the intention is 

 so entirely commercial that we should not have referred 

 to the new body at any length in these columns if the 

 President, Prof. Odling, in an address delivered on the 

 occasion, had not enunciated views which we believe all 

 true men of science will read with pain, and against which 

 we feel it ourbounden duty to make a protest. 



Before we proceed to deal with the address itself, it will 

 be well to clear the ground by a few general considerations 

 touching the applications of science to industry, and the 

 manner in which, time out of mind, and we hope for all 

 future time, scientific principles have been and will be 

 brought down to be utilised in the ordinary affairs of life. 

 First of all, it will be readily conceded that in the present 

 state of civilisation there is scarcely any handicraft or 

 manufacture or process in which some scientific fact or 

 principle does not lie at the root of the matter. Our 

 boots are the results of scientific applications, our clothes 

 are the result of scientific applications, the materials 

 depend upon science, the fit depends upon science. If 

 one had to define offhand the difference between a profes- 

 sion and a trade requiring skill in making certain articles, 

 one would say that the profession required more science 

 than the trade, that is, there is not a difference of quality, 

 but of quantity. The bootmal-cer that makes a boot, and 

 the surgeon that cuts off a toe, both deal, if they do their 

 work well, with the anatomy of the foot, but we expect 

 the professional surgeon to know more about this anatomy 

 than the shoemaker. Further, any science in the process 

 of the amalgamation of its applications with other similar 

 amalgamations at first begins by being in the hands of a 

 few individuals, let us say of high training ; it becomes 

 generalised, and then finds itself in the hands of a greater 

 number of individuals probably less highly trained, and 

 so on, till each special application of science becomes the 

 common property of the community. 



All fond, then, so far as science is concerned, we 

 can recognise no distinction between a profession and a 

 trade, or we may use the words an industry, if any one 

 likes them better. These industries or professions once 

 started are kept alive and fostered, and made more useful 

 for mankind, by the perpetual introduction of new scien- 

 tific facts and processes. This is as true for the im- 

 provement in leather and cloth manufactures, as it is in 

 the curing of hydrophobia, which may some day come. 

 Vol. xxxin.— No. 839 



Chemical science, for example, is the very sap of the 

 chemical industries, and there is the most intimate and 

 the most direct connection between the researcher and 

 the manufacturer. A Reichenbach discovers paraffin, 

 and a Young straightway turns it into candles. Andrews 

 demonstrates the true principles of the condensation of 

 gases, and these principles are forthwith applied to the 

 construction of a freezing-machine. The history of tech- 

 nology teems with instances of this kind. Indeed, some 

 of the huge manufacturing concerns of the Continent are 

 driven to anticipate the output of the purely scientific 

 laboratories of the Universities and higher schools by 

 employing investigators for themselves : the great colour- 

 making manufactory at Ludwigshafen has two score of 

 chemists at work on the industrial development of the 

 chemistry of aromatic compounds. Now these investi- 

 gators are in the first instance made by the Universities : 

 they are the product of their great chemical schools — 

 they are men who have caught something of the spirit of 

 that noble army of teachers who have dedicated their 

 lives to the advancement of natural knowledge for its 

 own sake without thought of guineas or " leading pro- 

 fessional position." The growth, then, of the chemical 

 trades must depend ultimately on the help which chemists 

 are able to give to the chemical traders. This help must 

 consist either in new knowledge to be furnished directly 

 by the chemist, or indirectly by the men whom he has so 

 trained that they may know how to seek for it and to find 

 it. Have we not here the true function and real duty of 

 "those of us occupying the leading position in the pro- 

 fession" or "who have already attained the higher steps 

 of the ladder of success," if such men are connected with 

 an University ? 



The honour given to teachers from the beginning of 

 time was accorded to them not merely for their learning 

 but for the new knowledge they produced and taught. 

 They were the guardians of the sacred fire ; and the 

 reverence with which they were regarded depended upon 

 the constancy with which they fed the flame. The esti- 

 mation in which men of science are held to-day, even if 

 they are not teachers, is due to the national benefits which 

 they confer by giving their lives to learning, teaching, and 

 to writing books for others ; and because such men are 

 regarded as the highest benefactors of our race and the 

 founders of our modern civilisation. The nation re- 

 members them even if they often forget themselves. 



Such men, however, do not exhaust the number of 

 those who have studied science or who perform useful 

 scientific functions. But the point is, however useful this 

 other class of men may be — like the bootmaker and the 

 tailor, who are eminently useful in their way — their know- 

 ledge is merely a stock-in-trade to which they look for 

 their livelihood. We have nothing whatever to say 

 against these men, but it is imperative that we should 

 point out that if their object in life is merely to get money 

 the public estimation of them cannot be expected to be 

 the same as that accorded to those whose lives are 

 devoted to the public good. Is it possible to tell one kind 

 of man from the other .'' 



This can be easily done. Let us assume that he is 

 a professor of science at a well-known seat of learning. 

 Are his lectures the best possible, or does he simply lose 

 the time of his students for so many hours per term .? 



