Arthur Bower Griffiths

“ The crowds which gathered to see the two bodies laid to rest together in the nation's great mausoleum proved the popularity and universal renown of Berthelot, who did perhaps as much for chemistry as Pasteur did for medicine, if not more; for not only did he open up new fields of inquiry and lead the way to innumerable discoveries and developments, but he practically founded new branches of science, namely, synthetic and thermo-chemistry. Berthelot was one of those "prodigious" men who honour every country and every epoch. He made science the highest and noblest end of man. ”

“ As an epoch-maker, Sir Charles Lyell had to pass through the fire of hostile criticism. He knew, however, that he had discovered truth, as interpreted by Nature's book—the rocks—and that he could with equanimity listen to the babble of little minds. Moreover, he was entirely free from vanity, egotism, and jealousy—in fact, a true philosopher and gentleman, with kind feelings and appreciation for the work of others. Science owes much to Lyell, and for centuries to come, yea for all time, he will receive the homage of posterity. ”

“ As long as chemistry exists the name of "Lavoisier" will always be remembered as the creator of a new era in science; and as long as the human race is capable of estimating the worth of noble labours, so long will the name of "Lavoisier" live, and the memory of him who bore it remain enshrined and held in affectionate reverence by succeeding generations. ”

“ Living in the renaissance of science, Buffon was no believer in the permanent stability of species. He says, e.g., "the pig does not appear to have been formed upon an original, special, and perfect plan, since it is a compound of other animals; it has evidently useless parts, or rather parts of which it cannot make any use—toes, all the bones of which are perfectly formed, and which, nevertheless, are of no service to it. Nature is far from subjecting herself to final causes in the formation of her creatures." ”

“ To talk to Sir Richard Owen was to be struck by the vastness of his knowledge, and "the noble dignity of his personal character was in every way worthy of his fame." To be in his company was to feel that one was in the presence of a genius. Nearly every one of his memoirs represents a large amount of laborious research, and in the aggregate they bear ample testimony to the soundness of that consensus of opinion which stamps Sir Richard Owen as the greatest palæontologist since Cuvier, and a comparative anatomist only second in the immensity and importance of his labours to Hunter himself. ”

“ It is only within the past sixty years that synthetic chemistry has come to take its proper place in the scientific world: what a powerful instrument of research it has proved; and this is due to the original stimulus given to it by Berthelot. Berthelot's idea of the synthesis of substances that will take the place of wheat and meat is the most audacious flight of fancy that scientific imagination has ever yet taken, but it need not, because of that, be classed among the impossibilities. ”

“ The stories were based on facts, which made them all the more interesting.
No man, not even Cuvier, has done so much as Owen to recreate the past, in visiting the "valley of dry bones" and informing these remains with the strange and weird life that endowed them; and in restoring in vivid outline that ancient world when huge "dragons of the prime" wallowed in the basins of the Thames and Seine, and when in a later age tigers, lions, hyænas and their kin contested with primitive man the supremacy of the sites where now London and Paris stand. ”

“ No doubt the world lost much, for as Sir Humphry Davy said of Cavendish's researches, "they were all of a finished nature, and though many of them were performed in the very infancy of chemical science, yet their accuracy and their beauty have remained unimpaired." ”

“ The spring sends its green leaves and bright weather, bright May, brighter than ever; death pauses not. Lavoisier, famed chemist, shall die and not live. Chemist Lavoisier was Farmer-General Lavoisier too, and now all the Farmers-General are arrested; all shall give an account of their moneys and incomings, and die for putting water in the tobacco they sold. Lavoisier begged a fortnight more of life to finish some experiments, but the Republic does not need such; the axe must do its work. ”

“ Through influence, capitalists and others, Mendeléeff became rich, bought an estate near Moscow, and became scientific adviser to the Minister of Finance. He was a thrifty man, and disliked society—society was a bore to his philosophic brain and to his love of solitude. Scarcely any branch of chemistry is there, practical or philosophical, which his genius has not touched and adorned. ”

“ Thomson was a profound mathematician and physicist, "a prince of science and benefactor of the world."
Even at eleven years of age the young philosopher was solving the problem—how long it had taken the earth to cool since it first came together as a white-hot globe: and only a few years ago, he stated that the earth was not more than twenty million years old, and would not probably sustain life more than ten million years longer; for in that time the sun would be cool, and therefore organic life on this planet would be impossible. ”

“ It is evident that the study of agricultural chemistry ought to be commenced by some general inquiries into the composition and nature of material bodies, and the law of their changes. The surface of the earth, the atmosphere, and the water deposited from it, must either together, or separately, afford all the principles concerned in vegetation; and it is only by examining the chemical nature of these principles that we are capable of discovering what is the food of plants, and the manner in which this food is supplied and prepared for their nourishment. ”

“ Chemistry in the past sixty years has done more to make mankind independent of Nature than all the other agencies in the world since the beginning of time. This is a big statement, but it is literally true. Chemistry, by its application to agriculture this past half-century, has doubled the world's producing power, has, in fact, put Nature in harness and made her do double work by the stimulation of growth. ”

“ Owen's palæontological work is of the highest order; and in work like his fossil mammals, birds, and reptiles, he excelled. The most characteristic of his faculties was a powerful scientific imagination. As the author wrote in one of his books, "the imagination is, after all, the most precious faculty with which a scientist can be equipped. It is a risky possession, it is true, for it leads him astray a hundred times for once that it conducts him to truth; but without it he has no chance at all of getting at the meaning of the facts he has learned or discovered." ”

“ Men of the first rank and talent, the literary and the scientific, the practical and the theoretical, blue-stockings and women of fashion, the old and the young—all crowded, eagerly crowded, the lecture room. His youth, his simplicity, his natural eloquence, his chemical knowledge, his happy illustrations and well-conducted experiments, excited universal attention and unbounded applause. ”

“ One word characterizes the most strenuous of the efforts for the advancement of science that I have made during fifty-five years, and that word is failure. I know no more of electric and magnetic force, or of the relations between ether, electricity, and ponderable matter, or of chemical affinity, than I knew and tried to teach fifty years ago in my first session as professor. Something of sadness must come of failure ”

“ If the laws of gravitation, and the decomposition of light by the prism, were the chief achievements of the immortal Newton; the magnitudes and motions of atoms, the theory of the age of the world, and oceanic telegraphy, were the principal discoveries of the immortal Kelvin.
A mere material universe, however, did not satisfy Lord Kelvin. There are such things as intelligence, volition, and emotion; the power to reason, the capacity to distinguish good and evil, and taste to admire the beautiful, which cannot be expressed in terms of length, breadth, and depth ”

“ By founding palæontology, he showed that extinct forms were just as important as living forms in a natural system of classification; and he also showed that the anatomy of recent animals aided in the reconstruction of the fossil forms, these reconstructed extinct animals filling up many morphological gaps.
Cuvier's work in comparative anatomy and allied subjects is a monument of intense labour; his teaching dominated most of the zoology of the first half of the nineteenth century, and his Anatomie Comparée has furnished a model for all students of the science of animal life. ”

“ It is an error to suppose that recent research has removed Dalton's atomic theory or rendered it obsolete. We now know that Dalton's atoms are not atoms, but it is still true that "elements combine in constant proportions by weight." In the words of Sir George Darwin: "The vast edifice of modern chemistry has been built with atomic bricks." From the later work of to-day we know that the atom is not the ultimate form of matter. ”

“ Although Davy, thirty years before, had published a work on Agricultural Chemistry, it was not until Liebig's book made its appearance that any great stride was made in the scientific principles of agriculture. This book is one of those few works which stand out from all others on the subjects of which they treat. It is undoubtedly the most important work on agriculture ever given to the world as the result of one man's researches and ideas. ”

“ This research had a far-reaching and an important bearing on the notions or theories of the times—theories that had existed for centuries were to be swept away by his clinching experimental proof of their absurdity; the art of alchemy and the pursuit of the philosopher's stone was rendered futile; but, above all, the experiments proved that the old alchemical idea of the transmutation to be false; [1] and it led him to enunciate one of the most profound truths in science—the non-indestructibility of matter—"rien ne se crée, rien ne se perde de la nature"—matter is everlasting. ”

“ It was only human that he expected honours and respect would be paid him. But this was not to be—"a prophet has no honour in his own country." The Swedish authorities ridiculed his system and botanical researches. He was by far too great a revolutionist in botany even in his young days: and it is a terrible crime to upset old theories in botany as well as in other sciences. The great dignitaries in science must first be consulted, and this Linnæus did not do! ”

“ Although Cavendish wrote much, he had an innate dislike to publicity. He published few papers, destroyed many, and therefore some of his brilliant researches were lost to science. His dread of popularity, want of laudable ambition, lack of enthusiasm, and morbid shyness compelled him to refrain from publishing many important scientific papers. Will there ever be an adequate life of Cavendish? ”

“ His work revolutionized agriculture, and made a science of it. He says in his Familiar Letters on Chemistry that "chemistry leads man into the domain of those latent forces, whose power controls the whole material world, and on whose operation is dependent the production of the most important necessaries of life and society. ... No science like chemistry offers to man such a multitude of subjects for thought and reflection, and such stores of knowledge imbued with the charms of never-ending freshness ”

“ Three years after the succession of Charles X., Cuvier refused the odious office of press censor, but accepted the position of administrator of the non-catholic religions in France.
Cuvier formed a most extensive library, and permitted naturalists of all nations to work in it. The spirit of jealousy was entirely foreign to his nature. He rejoiced in the discoveries and work of others. "The man who has made a permanent addition to our knowledge of facts has rendered an imperishable service to science," said Cuvier. ”

“ The quantitative work of Lavoisier, his weighing and measuring, and the philosophical deductions of his experiments, completely shattered the theory of phlogiston—a theory which prevented the advance of science and proved to be a false doctrine, which unfortunately lasted nearly a hundred years. A theory is only useful when it explains the truths of science and helps the advancement of knowledge. Many theories have disappeared from the realms of science, and many are undergoing modification even at the present day. ”

“ Another marvellous feature is the unheard-of energies which these fragments of radium set free in their break up. The powers of Nature in this respect astonish us as much as its extent in space and time.
Whether Lord Kelvin could read the future or not as to the drift of modern investigations on electrons and emanation "it would be shallow to believe that such men as Kelvin, with faculty quickened and outlook widened in the high air to which their fame raises them, really discerned no more than we, who have only their written words for authority, can perceive that they discerned. ”

“ Although the quantity of humus in a soil may be increased to a certain degree by an artificial cultivation, still, in spite of this, there cannot be the smallest doubt that a soil must gradually lose those of its constituents which are removed in the seeds, roots, and leaves of the plants raised upon it. The fertility of a soil cannot remain unimpaired, unless we replace in it all those substances of which it has been deprived.
Liebig's theory was a revolutionary movement on the accepted ideas of scientific agriculture which dawned at the commencement of the nineteenth century. ”