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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. No. 699 



traditional method, from the elder to the 

 younger generation working in the chem- 

 ical industries. So for the old chemical 

 industries we chemists should be thankful. 



But some of you may ask: What of the 

 great philosophers of Greece — what did 

 they do for chemistry— Bmpedocles, De- 

 mocritus, Aristotle and the rest 1 There is 

 nothing like going to original sources for 

 information and correct impressions, and 

 therefore in answer I shall ask you to read 

 from one of these philosophers— Bm- 

 pedocles. You all remember what sort of 

 a man Empedocles is reputed to have been. 

 He lived in Agrigentum in the island of 

 Sicily to the south of Italy from 490 to 

 430 B.C. He was at once statesman, 

 prophet, poet, physicist, physician and re- 

 former. The few remains of his numerous 

 writings are in verse— the classic hexam- 

 eter. Imagine Sir Wm. Ramsay chron- 

 icling the discovery of argon in hexam- 

 eters! Empedocles came of a proud 

 family, was austere, august, studious, 

 silent, and when he walked abroad in his 

 purple robes bound by a golden girdle, a 

 garland bound around his long hair, with 

 brazen sandals on his feet and his retinue 

 of slaves behind— for Greece and the 

 Grecian colonies were slave-holding coun- 

 tries—he excited the wonder and the ad- 

 miration of the populace. If you will 

 read Empedocles you will see that he 

 considered that all things are composed of 

 four "elements" so called, earth, water, 

 air and fire, and that the two forces, love 

 and strife, or as we should say, I suppose, 

 attractive and repulsive force, by acting 

 upon these elements, caused changes in the 

 composition of matter. 



Another philosopher, Demoeritus, who 

 lived about 490-390 B.C., in Abdera, in 

 Thrace, made another guess at the secret 

 of chemical composition. His hypothesis 

 concerning the composition of matter con- 

 sidered that there were in all the universe 



but two entities— vacuum and atoms. 

 Vacuum represented void, interplanetary 

 space. All material things were composed 

 of atoms. All spirit, too, was composed of 

 atoms as well. They were invisible 

 particles, extended, heavy, impenetrable, 

 of various shapes, uncaused, eternally- 

 existent and in ceaseless motion. This 

 hypothesis bears a striking resemblance to 

 the atomic theory of to-day. You see men, 

 like children, have in all ages asked the 

 questions: "What is this made of? What 

 is that made of?" and have endeavored 

 to answer these questions. 



You will have guessed already the dif- 

 ficulty with the chemistry of the Greeks. 

 It amounted to nothing more than specula- 

 tion. The hypotheses were never tested in 

 the workshop of science — the laboratory; 

 they remained at the last what they were 

 in the beginning— unproven products of 

 the imagination. And I think I may 

 safely say that all the Grecian philosophy, 

 as a means of developing and preserving 

 chemical knowledge, was worth less than 

 one factory engaged in chemical manu- 

 facture—let us say a factory engaged in 

 the manufacture of glass. 



So, on the last occasion on which I spoke 

 of "Chemistry and Industry" I empha- 

 sized, and indeed over-emphasized for the 

 sake of the argument, the debt of grati- 

 tude owed by the science of chemistry to 

 the manufacturing industries. To-night I 

 wish to take the other view-point and show 

 what the science of chemistry has done 

 and can yet do for manufacture. In 

 truth, manufacture and chemistry must be 

 considered as close partners in the affairs 

 of to-day and neither could well be de- 

 prived of the other. 



In ancient times and during the middle 

 ages progress in both manufacture and 

 chemistry was slow. That progress goes 

 on in an ever-increasing ratio, and very 

 suggestive of the great progress that has 



