July 14, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



39 



than of old, yearns to understand more of 

 the fundamental nature of things. On the 

 other hand, rational applied science to-day 

 must follow in the footsteps of the swiftly 

 advancing strides of theory. The laws of 

 chemistry can not be adequately applied 

 until they have been discovered. Chemical 

 insight, concerned with the intimate 

 changes of the substances which are all 

 about us as well as within our bodies, fur- 

 nishes us with the only means for employ- 

 ing material things to the best advantage. 

 Chemical processes appertain in large de- 

 gree to medicine, hygiene, agriculture and 

 manufacture ; these processes depend upon 

 laws of which the perfect understanding is 

 essential to the full development of most 

 of the activities of civilized life. 



However oblivious we may be of the in- 

 exorable laws of chemistry, we are ever 

 under their sway. Our consciousness is 

 housed in a mortal shell, consisting pri- 

 marily of compounds of less than a score of 

 chemical elements. The physiological be- 

 havior of our bodies is inevitably associated 

 with the chemical changes or reactions 

 among highly intricate chemical unions of 

 these few elements. The driving tendency 

 or immediate cause of the reactions which 

 support life is to be found in the chemical 

 affinities and respective concentrations of 

 the several substances. Our bodies are 

 chemical machines, from which we can not 

 escape except by quitting our earthly life. 

 The nature of the chemical elements and 

 their compounds therefore presents one of 

 the most interesting and important of all 

 problems offered to mankind. That the 

 study of chemical problems of life is con- 

 sistent with the study of man in a biolog- 

 ical, a psychological, or a spiritual sense is 

 obvious. To-day the epigram, "The proper 

 study of mankind is man, ' ' must be greatly 

 broadened in order to correspond with 

 modern knowledge. 



These words regarding the origin and 

 significance of chemistry serve as an intro- 

 duction. Your committee has honored me 

 by the request that I should tell you some- 

 thing about the object and outcome of my 

 own endeavors, and these could be made 

 clear only by reviewing the peculiar nature 

 of chemistry. In my case the incentive to 

 the pursuit of science was primarily that 

 intense curiosity concerning the nature of 

 things which echoes down the ages from the 

 time of the ancient philosophers. To the 

 feeling of curiosity, as time went on, was 

 added the perception that only through a 

 knowledge of the fundamental laws of 

 chemistry can men use the resources of the 

 world to the best advantage. Any further 

 gain in this knowledge must, sooner or 

 later, directly or indirectly, give mankind 

 more power. Even an abstract chemical 

 generalization must ultimately be of price- 

 less service to humanity, because of the ex- 

 traordinarily intimate relation between 

 theory and practise. 



The field is wide, and it is traversed by 

 many paths. Among these one must be 

 chosen and persistently followed if prog- 

 ress is to be made ; and in my case that one 

 was the study of the fundamental attributes 

 or properties of the chemical elements, and 

 the relation of these properties to one an- 

 other. The work was undertaken with the 

 hope of helping a little to lay a solid foun- 

 dation for our understanding of the human 

 environment. 



What, now, are the fundamental attri- 

 butes of the elements? First and foremost 

 among these stands iveight — the manifesta- 

 tion of the all-pervading and mysterious 

 force of gravitation possessed by all forms 

 of matter. Hand in hand with this attri- 

 bute of weight goes the equally inscrutable 

 property of inertia — that tendency which 

 causes a body once in motion to keep on 

 moving forever in the same straight line, if 



