48 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



in recognising this claim may be due to the fact that the chemical profession 

 is not yet unified to the same extent as the others just mentioned ; but it 

 is due also to a lack of realisation of the fundamental and widespread 

 character of the service which the chemist renders to the community, 

 and which I have emphasised in the foregoing part of this address. 



A just estimate of the chemist's function is almost impossible for those 

 who associate him chiefly with explosives and poison gas and regard him 

 as a particularly devilish kind of scientist. Such a picture is hopelessly 

 out of relation with the facts. It is, of course, true that chemists have 

 produced dangerous and poisonous substances, but most of these were 

 discovered originally in the general quest for knowledge, and many 

 have legitimate and valuable applications ; their use for destructive 

 purposes is a perversion. Phosgene, for example, one of the so-called 

 poison gases, was discovered more than ioo years ago, and is an important 

 material at the intermediate stage in the manufacture of certain dye- 

 stuffs. Nitrates, which are the basis for the manufacture of most 

 explosives, play a prominent role as fertilisers in agriculture, and ex- 

 plosives themselves are indispensable in mining operations. 



The truth is that the employment for other than beneficial ends of the 

 substances discovered by the chemist is due, not to his especial wickedness, 

 but to the weakness and backwardness of the human spirit. Like other 

 scientists, the chemist normally has a constructive point of view, and he 

 cannot but deplore the fact that, as Sir Alfred Ewing said in his Presi- 

 dential Address : ' The command of Nature has been put into man's 

 hands before he knows how to command himself.' I think I speak for 

 the vast majority of my fellow- chemists in saying that we dislike intensely 

 the present world-wide prostitution of knowledge and skill to destructive 

 ends. The sooner this is eliminated, and the less call there is for lethal 

 and devastating materials, the greater will be our satisfaction. 



There are, indeed, welcome signs that scientific workers are increasingly 

 impatient at the extent to which their knowledge is made to serve inhuman 

 ends. The possibilities before humanity have been fairly set out by a 

 recent historian, H. A. L. Fisher : ' The developing miracle of science is 

 at our disposal to use or to abuse, to make or to mar. With science we 

 may lay civilisation in ruins, or enter into a period of plenty and well- 

 being, the like of which has never been experienced by mankind.' To the 

 clearing of this conflicting situation, the scientist has not always made the 

 constructive contribution which he might have done : he has been content 

 to adopt an objective and detached attitude, suggesting sometimes com- 

 plete indifference to the wider human issues at stake . Unfortunately, if one 

 may judge from a recent play by J. B. Priestley, this attitude is commonly 

 regarded as typical of the scientist. Gridley, a ship engineer, addressing 

 Fletherington, a research chemist, says ' You're all wrong. You're a 

 nuisance. You're a menace.' Fletherington : ' I'm not, I'm simply a 

 chemist, a scientist.' Gridley : ' I know, I know, and to-day you're trying 

 to blow us up and to-morrow you'll be trying to dose us with poison gas. 

 What do you want to go and make the foul stuff for ? Before you've 

 finished you fellows'ull do the lot of us in.' Fletherington : 'I'm very 

 distressed to hear you talking like this, Mr. Gridley. I've never willingly 



