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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 370. 



be tempered by reason. Hopefulness and 

 enthusiasm are fine qualities, but the re- 

 straint of common sense should keep them 

 within bounds. Too much complacency is 

 dangerous, and on occasions like this we 

 may well pause in our gratulations over 

 past achievements, to ask ourselves whither 

 we are tending. As chemists, we owe some- 

 thing to the science which we represent, 

 and the debt is one which can never be dis- 

 charged absolutely. That we have done 

 much is evidence that we can and should 

 do more; as a society and as individuals 

 we may well look about lis and strive to 

 see which way the path of duty lies. We 

 cannot appraise the future, but we must 

 help to make it. Only by acting with in- 

 telligent forethought can we hope to ad- 

 vance creditably. 



Retrospection is the one safe basis for 

 prophecy. The history of science is full 

 of suggestions for the days to come, and 

 even if we do no more than to avoid the 

 repetition of mistakes, we shall gain much 

 from the study. Great as the past has 

 been, we can make sure of something better 

 still, looking confidently forward to more 

 perfect knowledge, to larger opportunities 

 for research and to wider recognition in 

 the republic of learning. Let us see how 

 chemistry has developed hitherto, and how 

 we can improve her present condition. 



A little over a century ago chemistry was 

 hardly more than an empirical art — a 

 minor department in the broad field of 

 natural philosophy. There were no chem- 

 / ists in the professional sense of the term, 

 and no laboratories worthy of the name; 

 that is, no buildings were planned and 

 erected for chemical purposes alone; but 

 chemical investigations were conducted in 

 any room which happened to be available, 

 with a disregard for convenience which 

 would be intolerable to-day. Even at a 

 later period the marvelous researches of 

 Berzelius were performed in a laboratory 



wliieh was essentially a kitchen. If we use 

 the word in its true sense, the earlier chem- 

 ists were amatevirs ; that is to say, men who 

 labored for the love of truth and without 

 ulterior professional motives. Priestley 

 was a clergyman, who regarded his volu- 

 minous theological writings as more im- 

 portant than his contributions to science. 

 Scheele was an apothecary ; Lavoisier was a 

 public official with multifarious duties; 

 Dalton was a schoolmaster and arithmeti- 

 cian. Before these men and their contem- 

 poraries, a vast unexplored territory was 

 outspread; and no one could suspect what 

 hidden riches might lie beneath its surface. 

 Lavoisier, with his emphasis upon quanti- 

 tative methods; Dalton, with the atomic, 

 theory; Davy, the discoverer and definer 

 of elements ; and Berzelius, with his genius 

 for system and his untiring industry in 

 the accumulation of details, opened the 

 main roads into the new empire. Special- 

 ism in chemistry was practically unknown ; 

 all portions of its domain seemed to be 

 equally inviting; but inorganic problems 

 were perhaps the most obvious, and, being 

 easiest to grasp, received the greater share 

 of attention. 



There were, from the beginning, two 

 great stimuli to chemical research; the in- 

 tellectual interest of the problems to be 

 solved, and the practical utility of many 

 discoveries. Both forces were essential to 

 the rapid development of our science; 

 neither one alone would have been ade- 

 quately effective. Economic considera- 

 tions, taken by themselves, help but little 

 towards the symmetrical organization of 

 scientifie knowledge, for the practical man 

 has usually a limited, although very direct, 

 purpose in view, and may not wander far 

 from his main issue. On the other hand, 

 the purely scientific investigator can rarely 

 exercise his full powers without a certain 

 measure of popular support and encourage- 

 ment, to which the expectation of useful- 



