38 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1124 



The history of the complicated evolution 

 of chemistry is profoundly significant to 

 the student of human thought. Long ago, 

 at the very dawn of civilization, Hindu aud 

 Greek philosophers were deeply interested 

 in the problems presented by the nature of 

 the universe. They speculated intelligently, 

 although often with childlike naivete, con- 

 cerning energy and the structure of matter ; 

 but they forbore to test their speculations 

 by experiment. They builded better than 

 they knew ; their ancient atomic hypothesis, 

 ardently supported but very inadequately 

 applied two thousand years ago, now finds 

 itself installed in the innermost recesses of 

 chemical theory. Independently, ancient 

 artisans and medieval alchemists, dealing 

 with the mysterious actual behavior of 

 things, acquired valuable acquaintance with 

 simple chemical processes. After much 

 chemical knowledge of facts had been 

 gained, alchemy sought the aid of philos- 

 ophy. Thus, little by little, order was 

 brought into the chaos of scattered experi- 

 ence. But strictly chemical knowledge 

 alone was inadequate to solve the cosmic 

 riddle ; it had to be supplemented by knowl- 

 edge of heat and electricity — agencies 

 which produce profound alterations in the 

 chemical nature of substances. Thus the 

 study of physics was combined with that of 

 chemistry. Again, since mathematical gen- 

 eralization is essential to the study of 

 physics, this discipline also was, of neces- 

 sity, added to the others. All these power- 

 ful tools taken together having failed to 

 penetrate to the ultimate essence of things, 

 imagination is invoked, and physiochemical 

 dreams to-day conceive a mechanism of 

 infinitesimal entities far beyond our most 

 searching powers of direct observation. 



Chemistry has not grown spontaneously 

 to its present estate ; it is a product of hu- 

 man mentality. The science which we know 

 to-day is but an echo of the eternal and in- 



comprehensible "music of the spheres," as 

 heard and recorded by the minds of indi- 

 vidual men. Impersonal and objective al- 

 though matter and energy may be, their ap- 

 preciation by man involves much that is 

 subjective. The history of science, like all 

 the rest of human history, is, as Emerson 

 said, "the biography of a few stout and 

 earnest persons." 



Robert Boyle, self-styled "the skeptical 

 chymist," a gentle spirit skeptical only of 

 the false and vain, pure-minded aristocrat 

 in an age of corruption; Mikhail Lomono- 

 soff, poet, philosopher, philologist and scien- 

 tific seer, far outstripping contemporary 

 understanding; Antoine Lavoisier, whose 

 clear mind first taught man to comprehend, 

 after thousands of years, the mighty stolen 

 gift of Prometheus; John Dalton, Quaker 

 peasant, who found convincing chemical 

 evidence for the ancient atomic hypothesis ; 

 Michael Faraday, a blacksmith 's son, whose 

 peerless insight and extraordinary genius 

 in experiment yielded theoretical and prac- 

 tical fruits beyond the world's most daring 

 dreams — these men and a few score others 

 are the basis of the history of chemistry. 

 The science has not come into being, Min- 

 erva-like, full-grown from the brain of 

 Jove; she has been born of human travail, 

 nursed and nourished from feeble infancy 

 by human caretakers, and she sees the uni- 

 verse to-day through human eyes. 



The diversified origin of chemistry has 

 shaped the varied contemporary application 

 of the science and its many-sided destiny in 

 the years to come. Chemistry has wide 

 theoretical bearings, but at the same time is 

 concerned with the crudest and most obvi- 

 ous affairs of manufacture and every day 

 life. Chemical knowledge must form an 

 essential part of any intelligent philosophy 

 of the nature of the universe, and alone can 

 satisfy one manifestation of that intense 

 intellectual curiosity which to-day, no less 



