584 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1364 



get definite evidence as to the fundamental 

 structure of nuclei. G. S. Fuloher 



; National Beseakch Council, 

 November 27, 1919 



THE FESTSCHRIFT OF SVANTE 

 ARRHENIUSi 



Highly Honored Friend and Master: 



Modern culture is perhaps best character- 

 ized by man's enlarging control over nature. 

 But this has not been attained without an 

 increased knowledge of the forces wherewith 

 natiu-e works. Through your now over thirty 

 year old theory concerning force ions, you 

 have made possible a deeper penetration into 

 nature's own workshop than was formerly at- 

 tainable. Concerning electrolytic phenomena, 

 which your countryman Berzelius, with cor- 

 rect appreciation of their fundamental sig- 

 aiificance, so diligently studied, you have shed 

 a wonderful light and you have thereby 

 strengthened the foundations for the whole 

 chemical knowledge and this not alone with 

 respect to lifeless nature, but in equally high 

 degree with respect to living nature. " Selten 

 hat ein gliicklicher Gedanke," once said W. 

 Ostwald, who was himself the first to under- 

 stand its m.eaning, " in so hohem Maasse 

 Licht Tiber weite und schwierige Gebiete 

 geworfen, wie die von Arrhenius entwickelte 

 Idee, dass die Elektrolyte in wassriger Losimg 

 in ihre lonen dissoziirt sind." 



Briefly stated, you have with your, theory 

 stirred up a culture wave within the scientific 

 and technical world which will sweep forward 

 through time and thereby you have also 

 become one of our time's culture bearers. 



If one may believe Xenophon, Socrates 

 used to advise those who sought help con- 

 cerning their difficulties, to carry out that 

 which they knew should happen, as he deemed 

 best; but otherwise he advised that they 

 ought to have recourse to the art of divina- 

 tion, hearken to the inner spirit, which should 

 give them directions. Thus does also the sci- 

 entist. When theory is clear he follows it in 



1 Translation of Preface of ' ' Festskrif t uitgiven 

 Till Svante Arrhenius ' 60-Arsdag den 19 Febniari, 

 1919." 



the best manner, but when the opposite is 

 true, even he must resort to divination ; and 

 a wonderful prophet you have been. You 

 seem once to have had one of these dreams 

 which, as is said, sometimes goes ahead and 

 anticipates the judgment of clear daylight. 



Among the friends of Socrates was also 

 Aristippus. It is related concerning him 

 that he like the rest of beauty-loving Athens 

 was sorely smitten by the handsome Lais. 

 One of his friends expressed surprise over 

 this that even he, the sober philosopher, 

 should have been caught in her net. Aris- 

 tippus, who was no friend of superfluous 

 words, answered merely : Caught, by no means 

 imprisoned. Thus you can also say concern- 

 ing the ions. Tou have bound them to 

 reality by unbreakable bonds, but your spirit 

 for research has not let itself be bound to 

 merely this field of labor. 



When one wishes to scale the Alps he comes 

 first to the warm, peaceful valleys where 

 living nature steps forward to meet him in all 

 her beauty, and there one might wish to dwell 

 his whole life were not the view so limited. 

 One climbs higher and higher and the horizon 

 widens, but the air becomes sharper, flowers 

 and foliage disappear, and at last one is met 

 by only the cold blasts of snow and ice. 

 Everything would speak of death if in this 

 indescribable silence, in this boundless heaven 

 there was not found something which spoke 

 of the unending, the everlasting. A similar 

 road you have trodden through the research 

 world. Tou have with your keen vision 

 imagined yourself to see the whole universe's 

 unending space and everlasting time, how the 

 worlds therein develop and dissolve, how all 

 is a perpetuuni mohile; yes, you have with the 

 camera's help found how the seeds of life 

 sail through the ether ocean from world to 

 world. Such are the wide-embracing views 

 you have given us. 



To celebrate the day when you with yet 

 unbroken power and undiminished interest 

 enter upon your seventh decennium, we have 

 with admiration for your research work and 

 in devoted friendship for your person dedi- 

 cated to you this writing. 



