284 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 36 



side of the question, and what aid has come 

 from the former to the latter to promote its 

 advancement, if, indeed, any distinction can 

 be made so far as the additions to human 

 knowledge are concerned. For science is 

 cosmopolitan, as it were, and omnivorous, 

 and facts from whatever source, and of 

 whatever kind, are greedily absorbed to 

 form a pai-t of the grand structure of hu- 

 man knowledge, whether they come from 

 efforts made at leisure and in the quiet of 

 the study or private laboratory, or whether 

 they are developed in the struggle for exist- 

 ence and the daily bread. 



In its earlier development, substantially 

 beginning with the present century, chem- 

 istry was the newest of the physical sciences. 

 It grew uj) out of the empiricism of the pre- 

 ceding centuries and had its foundation in 

 the facts to be found in the daily practice of 

 those engaged in the endeavor to meet the 

 demands of the current needs. As civiliza- 

 tion progresses, culture extends, demands 

 consequently grow, and it is one of the in- 

 evitable laws of sociology and political econ- 

 omy, as of nature, that these demands shall 

 be met. To meet them human ingenuity 

 must be taxed for the determination of 

 methods and means; and whether it be to 

 secure immediately useful results or to es- 

 tablish more abstract truths, intellectual 

 endeavor is required, knowledge must be in- 

 creased and science therefore advanced. 

 Literature is filled with description of the 

 service which the science of chemistrj' has 

 rendered to the industries and the commer- 

 cial world, and the development of the tar 

 color industry is the favorite example of 

 this so frequently cited. History, so far as 

 it is written, for the most part deals with 

 the subject from this standpoint. But it 

 may properly be questioned whether the 

 industry was wholly the outcome of scien- 

 tific research or whether science received 

 much, at least, of its inspiration, its sugges- 

 tion, its original material from the industry 



already developed in an intensely empirical 

 way. It is this side of the question that 

 will occupy us at the present time, and we 

 shall endeavor to call attention to some of 

 the influences which operate from one side 

 or the other to bring about the results in- 

 dicated and to the reciprocal influences 

 which flow from the resiilts themselves. 



The true fundamental principles of the 

 science were not developed and set forth 

 through the classic researches and deduc- 

 tions of the great leaders, Dalton, Priestley, 

 Cavendish, Black, Wenzel, Richter, Lavoi- 

 sier, Gay Lussac, Avogadro, Dulong and 

 Petit until the close of the last and the ear- 

 lier years of the present century. But even 

 before the beginning of the last century the 

 rapid progress of civilization and culture in 

 other lines had made demands for the prod- 

 ucts of the chemical arts, and they were 

 met in ways that were empirical it is true, 

 but by reactions which were as positive 

 then as they are now, even though they 

 were unknown, and they furnished fertile 

 food for study and speculation on the part 

 of the philosophers in fields quite new to 

 them, led them out from the libraries of the 

 monasteries to the active work of the busy 

 world, furnished them with facts for col- 

 laboration and classification, from which 

 thej' were amply able to construct the hj^po- 

 theses and build up the theories which have 

 been of so much value to the civilized world. 

 During the entire century the industries 

 thrived and grew, met the demands put 

 upon them and brouglit about the establish- 

 ment of facts that long since were recorded 

 as new discoveries. 



The acknowledged fathers of the science 

 of chemistry, although eminent scholars 

 and connected with the institutions of learn- 

 ing, were many, if not most of them, di- 

 rectly interested in the manufacture of 

 chemical products, and by their general ed- 

 ucation and higher intelligence were enabled 

 to contribute to their material advance- 



