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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 673 



problem is "What is the use?"— "Of what 

 value will be the solution of the problem, 

 if you succeed?" The contrast between 

 the product of this thousand years of utili- 

 tarian science and the material results 

 which have accrued during the two and a 

 half centuries of better ideals is a sufficient 

 answer, even from the material point of 

 view— but I wish to protest against meas- 

 uring the value of scientific work on the 

 basis of dollars and cents. 



About three hundred years ago there 

 began to appear men who took an interest 

 in the study of natural phenomena for the 

 purpose of gaining a deeper insight into 

 the nature of the world about them. There 

 were, at first, very few men of this new 

 type, and progress was slow in comparison 

 with that of later times, but it was rapid 

 when compared with the time of the al- 

 chemists. For these men were actuated by 

 an entirely new and different spirit— the 

 desire to know and the desire to gain knowl- 

 edge that it might become freely the prop- 

 erty of the whole world— and the knowl- 

 edge they sought was not like that of the 

 alchemist, whose aim was selfish and per- 

 sonal and whose greatest fear was that his 

 secret discovery might become common 

 property and so lose its value. 



During the two centuries that followed 

 there was a slow accumulation of chemical 

 knowledge which passed freely among the 

 few who had become imbued with this new 

 spirit of investigation. During this period 

 there was developed, too, the first really 

 important generalization of the science— 

 the theory'of phlogiston which gave a quali- 

 tative explanation of the phenomena of 

 combustion. This theory lived for more 

 than a century and was useful in its time, 

 but when the fundamental facts about com- 

 bustion were discovered by Priestley and 

 Cavendish and Lavoisier the theory was no 

 longer needed. It was not displaced by a 



new theory, for the knowledge of the simple 

 facts about oxygen and its relation to com- 

 bustion was enough. 



At the dawn of the nineteenth century 

 Dalton gave to the world the next great 

 generalization of our science — the atomic 

 theory. This theory has been the central 

 idea which has permeated the science and 

 guided its development since that time. It 

 has given to us a vivid picture which inter- 

 prets and classifies for us the bewildering 

 mass of experimental facts acquired by the 

 work of thousands of chemists. 



But while we find that this central guid- 

 ing principle in the science was given to 

 the world early in the century, there were 

 as yet but few workers to cultivate the rich 

 fields lying before them. There were no 

 schools of chemistry, no great laboratories 

 for instruction and research, such as we 

 find to-day. But there were a few brilliant 

 workers— Sir Humphry Davy in England, 

 with his discovery of the alkali metals ; Gay 

 Lussac in France, with his laws of gases 

 and discovery of iodine; Berzelius in 

 Sweden, with his incredible achievements 

 in the development of analytical methods 

 and determination of equivalent weights. 

 And for each of these there was another 

 who gained from him an inspiration 

 for scientific achievement— Faraday from 

 Davy, Wohler from Berzelius and Liebig 

 from Gay Lussac. But Liebig did much 

 more than go back to Germany to work in 

 a laboratory of his own with perhaps an 

 assistant or two. He founded in Giesen a 

 laboratory for the training of investigators 

 and it is scarcely possible to overestimate 

 the importance of the influences which 

 went out from that laboratory. To that 

 laboratory came a company of enthusiastic 

 young men gathered from all over the 

 world. These men gained from their asso- 

 ciation with Liebig something of vastly 

 greater importance than a knowledge of 



