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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 344. 



ers even diversify at greater length and we 

 have physical chemistry, technological, an- 

 alytical, agricultural and physiological 

 chemistry. Chemical laws prevail and are 

 the same, it matters not how one classifies 

 his facts. 



By mathematics through ages we have 

 sought expression, whether by definite exact 

 numbers, equations or indeterminates. It 

 is the language of physics, making possible 

 the expression of the invention of means for 

 measuring force and calculating its effect 

 upon matter. Joule, Helmholtz, Robert 

 Mayer and Maxwell in their refined discov- 

 eries in mechanics touched chemistry, for 

 the explanations of the phenomena of dis- 

 sociation, solution, vapor pressure, osmotic 

 pressure, etc., as developed by Arrhenius, 

 Van't Hoff and Nernst, and taught by Ost- 

 wald, could never have gained currency 

 save through the invention of a mode of 

 quantitative expression by the former sa- 

 vants. J. B . Bichter over a hundred years 

 ago said that chemistry was a branch of 

 mathematics. In fact, recently Lord Kel- 

 vin said ' Nothing can be clearly under- 

 stood until we can express it in figures. ' 



It has only been within the past three- 

 tenths of the present century that the bar- 

 riers between physics and chemistry have 

 been completely removed. This came 

 about through the necessity of applying 

 more closely certain laws of physics for the 

 explanation of chemical facts, as, for ex- 

 ample, electrolytic conductivity, heat of re- 

 action and so on, and reciprocally by con- 

 version of chemical force into electrical 

 energy, heat, phosphorescent light, etc., 

 and measuring the same. Mathematics 

 has served as the medium of quantitatively 

 determining these changes — in short, phys- 

 ical chemistry. 



Geology may be termed the chemistry 

 and physics of the earth's crust, more par- 

 ticularly applied to the inanimate portion 

 of the world, although full cognizance is 



taken of alterations of the shell by animals. 

 Latterly geology and biology, the chemistry 

 and physics of animal life, may be said to 

 merge. Only recently chemistry and biol- 

 ogy have been more firmly welded into a 

 unit by the interesting work of Bredig and 

 Miiller von Berneck on ' Inorganic Fer- 

 ments,' in which was demonstrated that 

 certain life processes, hitherto regarded as 

 possible only through the intervention of 

 bacilli, could be carried out by means of an 

 active chemical. This step is far in ad- 

 vance of even Biichner's enzyme fermenta- 

 tion. Attention has been called by the 

 sensational press to the incomplete, but 

 fruitful and promising, researches of Loeb 

 and E. B. Wilson on parthenogenesis or 

 chemical fertilization. 



Cognizant of the persistent outcropping 

 of favorable evidence for Darwin's evolu- 

 tion, we observe a unity of purpose in ani- 

 mal growth. Astronomy is the chemistry 

 and physics of celestial bodies, and our 

 knowledge of them is based upon observa- 

 tions dependent upon mathematical consid- 

 erations. By the term mathematics here 

 used of course must be meant simply a 

 method by which the senses judge. 



Accepting, therefore, the articulated rela- 

 tion among the various utilitarian divisions 

 of science, we may develop our theme along 

 the lines of those teachings of which we feel 

 best qualified to write, namely, physics and 

 chemistry, and regard all science as these 

 two diflferently applied, either as to method 

 of application, or class to which we would 

 direct the application. We are perfectly 

 aware of valid arguments that may be put 

 forward strenuously against such a concep- 

 tion, yet feel that we shall be reduced to 

 the study of a unity, as we must eventually 

 express our knowledge of all science, quali- 

 tative and quantitative, mathematically. 



Despite this unifying tendency to which 

 we would call attention, chemists persist in 

 discovering new elements, as argon, helium, 



