November 25, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



723 



both chemist and physicist will welcome 

 every mode of acquiring more light upon 

 the absorbing topic which engages them in 

 common — the study of the ultimate laws 

 and structure of the universe. 



It is a pleasure to think that one of the 

 foremost of the brilliant men who have 

 joined in advancing this wished-for end — 

 this union of the resources of physics and 

 chemistry to a common purpose — since the 

 last meeting of the American Association 

 has had his services recognized and his op- 

 portunity enlarged by his own University 

 of Leipzig. Wilhelm Ostwald's new lab- 

 oratory for physico-chemical research is the 

 second important university building for 

 this purpose which has been erected in 

 Germany, the first having been built at 

 Gottingen for the brilliant WaltherlSTernst ; 

 and the fact that Ostwald should at last 

 have obtained a material outfit worthy of 

 his unusual mental equipment is welcomed 

 with enthusiasm by his many warm friends. 

 We all know what a profound efifect Ost- 

 wald's surprising book, his timely Zeit- 

 schrift, and in general his broad and pro. 

 gressive point of view, have had upon the 

 development of both chemistry and physics, 

 and it has been a matter of some surprise 

 to many that so great an influence should 

 , have emanated from a laboratory so insig- 

 ' nificant as the old Zweitem Laboratorium, 

 so called. The new building, although not 

 very large, is in many respects a model ; 

 the architect and director of any kind 

 of scientific workshop could not fail to 

 obtain valuable hints from the detailed 

 statement of it contained in the re- 

 cently published appendix to the Zeitschrift 

 fiir pbysikalische Chemie. What a pity 

 ^ that America should allow Germany to out- 

 strip us so far in devotion to the ideals of 

 pure science ! How long will it be before 

 we build laboratories especially for physical 

 chemistry, or even in many colleges allot 

 a considerable share of old buildings to this 



end ? And yet this physical chemistry 

 now comprehends all of the field of theo- 

 retical chemistry, except a certain kind of 

 reasoning concerned with the structure of 

 organic substances, and the purely chem- 

 ical part of the mysterious classification 

 called the periodic system of the elements. 



Very few of the processes of nature are 

 simple in their proximate causes or their 

 outward manifestations, however simple 

 the grand underlying principles may be in 

 their ultimate essence. The old maxim, by 

 which theories were so often consciously or 

 unconsciously judged, ' Our theory is so 

 simple that it must be true,' is a dangerous 

 guide. Geber's old notion that the whole 

 world consists of sulphur and mercury, and 

 the topsy-turvy delusion of phlogiston, re- 

 lied largely on this maxim for support, and 

 it behooves us to avoid similar mistakes. 

 When the ancient idea of luck had been 

 eliminated from scientific reasonings man- 

 kind admitted that every phenomenon is a 

 function of its controlling causes ; but that 

 all the mathematical relations should be ca- 

 pable of solution, although to be sure only 

 with the aid of the potent modern methods, 

 is a new conception. In the old days prob- 

 lems in chemistry which could not be solved 

 by simple arithmetic, or at best by elemen- 

 tary algebra, were considered incapable of 

 quantitative solution ; now, the higher 

 mathematics is a facile tool in the hands of 

 many an eager chemist. Even that mystery 

 of mysteries, the smallness of the yield in 

 the preparation of organic substances, has 

 a flood of light shed upon it by the phase- 

 rule and the mass-law ! 



No one who is familiar with the facts can 

 doubt that the mathematical point of view 

 will prove in the future more and more use- 

 ful to chemists, as well as to the new phys- 

 ical botanists and zoologists, who are bring- 

 ing it to bear on their transcendently 

 recondite problems. These last-named in- 

 vestigators will follow in the footsteps of 



