July 15, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



69 



Group I. is largely made up of the classics, 

 and it is therefore generally called the 

 classical group. I happened once to be 

 dining with a gentleman whose son was a 

 student in Group I. in our college. Our 

 professor of Latin was also present. Turn- 

 ing to my colleague, the professor of Latin, 

 our host, the father of the classical student, 

 exclaimed : ' How those fellows in Group I. 

 look down upon all the others ! ' I after- 

 wards learned that this feeling undoubt- 

 edly existed among the students, those who 

 studied the classics, especially, forming, in 

 their own opinion at least, a well-character- 

 ized aristocracy. I have referred to these 

 cases simply for the purpose of showing 

 that the pernicious idea that hand-work is 

 a sign of inferiority is not yet dead. But 

 it has nevertheless been disappearing 

 rapidly for some years past, and with its 

 disappearance the development of science 

 has kept pace. Which is the cause and 

 which the effect it would perhaps be 

 hard to say. At all events, the growth 

 of every department of science has been 

 more rapid within the last fifty years 

 than during the preceding fifty years, 

 though we should be doing gross injustice 

 to our predecessors were we to belittle their 

 work. The fact is, I am inclined to think 

 that there never was a more fruitful period, 

 in chemistry at least, than the last quarter 

 of the eighteenth century. Farther on, I 

 shall have occasion to speak of a few of the 

 great chemical discoveries that were made 

 during that period. No greater discoveries 

 have been made since. In astronomy, New- 

 ton 's great work was done more than two 

 centuries ago. An age that can boast of 

 the discovery of the law of gravitation 

 may fairly lay claim to the title, ' the age of 

 science.' Many and many a great dis- 

 covery in science preceded the present age, 

 but from what I have already said, you 

 .will see that the reason for calling this age 

 in which we live the scientific age is found 



in the fact that scientific work is much 

 more extensively carried on at present 

 than at any time in the past, and, further, 

 the world is beginning to reap the rewards 

 of this work. So striking are some of these 

 rewards that they appeal to all. The world 

 is dazzled by them, and is to a large extent 

 unable to distinguish between the scientific 

 work which has made these rewards pos- 

 sible and the rewards themselves. The idea 

 is prevalent that scientific work is carried 

 on in order that rewards in the shape of 

 practical results may be reached. I have 

 no desire to bring my fellow- workers in sci- 

 ence into disrepute. It would therefore 

 perhaps be best for me to stop here; but, 

 if you will bear with me, I will try to make 

 it clear to you that one may be engaged in 

 scientific work all his life, never thinking 

 of what the world calls practical results, 

 that he may in fact not achieve a single 

 result that can be called practical, and yet 

 not waste his time ; and that one may hold 

 such a .worker up to admiration without 

 running much risk of being taken for a 

 fool. This will be my object in what I 

 still have to say. 



While I have thus far referred to science 

 in the broadest sense, meaning the science 

 of nature, let me now turn more especially 

 to the science to which it has been my lot 

 to devote my life, and let me endeavor to 

 show by a few examples the relations that 

 exist between work that a.ppears to be of 

 little practical value when first performed 

 and results that, from the industrial point 

 of view, are of the highest value. 



I have often been embarrassed by these 

 questions put to _me in my laboratory: 

 'What are you doing?' and 'Of what use 

 is the work?' Generally I am obliged to 

 answer to the first, "I regret that I can 

 not possibly explain what I am doing. I 

 have tried to do so in some cases, but I have 

 been begged to stop"; and to the second, 

 the only possible answer has been, ' I do not 



