Chemist

“ In the later or creative stages we enter the domain of chemistry, for it is the chemist alone who possesses the power of reducing a substance to its constituent atoms and from them producing substances entirely new. But the chemist has been slow to realize his unique power and the world has been still slower to utilize his invaluable services. Until recently indeed the leaders of chemical science expressly disclaimed what should have been their proudest boast. The French chemist Lavoisier in 1793 defined chemistry as "the science of analysis." ”

“ When he found that each of the known elements, such as copper or oxygen or carbon, consisted ultimately of atoms, all the atoms of any one element being alike, he laid the foundation on which the huge structure of modern chemistry has been raised. The chemist takes one or more atoms of one element, one or more of another, and may be of a third or fourth, and he puts them together into a compound which we call a molecule. ”

“ They put their fingers among coals, into clay and filth, not into gold rings. They are sooty and black, like smiths and miners, and do not pride themselves upon clean and beautiful faces."
In these respects the chemist of to-day faithfully follows the practice of the alchemists who were his predecessors. You can nose a chemist in a crowd by the smell of the laboratory which hangs about him; you can pick him out by the stains on his hands and clothes. He also "takes delight in his laboratory"; he does not always "pride himself on a clean and beautiful face" ”

“ Evidently, then, the tendency of chemical investigation is to connect the physical properties of every substance directly with its composition.
Here we step over the border into physics. Plainly, if we have to deal with physical properties, we must study the forces represented by them. And, fortunately for the chemist, the tendency among physicists is entirely in his favor. Growing up contemporaneously with the development of chemical notation, we have had the grand ideas of the conservation of energy and the correlation of forces. ”

“ The chemist has as much right to revel in the imaginary formation of sodium from potassium, or iodine and bromine from chlorine, by a process of development, and eall it science, as for the naturalist to revel in many of his wild speculations, or for the physicist who studies the stellar space to imagine it permeated by mind as well as light—mind such as has formed the poet, the statesman, or the philosopher. ”

“ I have demonstrated that the chemist works in opposition to living nature, that he burns, destroys, analyzes, that the vital force alone operates by synthesis, that it reconstructs the edifice torn down by the chemical forces. ”

“ Before entering into the next series of experiments the young chemist must know that all the substances of which the world and everything in it are made up—i.e., the elements are arranged in two classes, the metals and the non-metals. ”

“ I rather expect that we shall some day find for what we now call atoms a mathematico-mechanical explanation which will render an account of atomic weight, of atomicity, and of numerous other properties of the so-called atoms. As a chemist, however, I regard the assumption of atoms not only as advisable, but as absolutely necessary, in chemistry. I will even go further, and declare my belief that chemical atoms exist, provided the term be understood to denote those particles of matter which undergo no further division in chemical metamorphoses. ”

“ To properly understand the science of chemistry we must study the valence of the atom which determines the power of combination of the various elements, together with other niceties, such as atomic weight, density, etc. New wonders are constantly opening up to the most experienced chemist, who understands best the immensity of his chosen science. ”

“ However large the masses changed by chemical action, that action is always on the individual molecule, the atoms of which are separated. If the molecule were an indivisible particle, no science of chemistry would be possible. The physicist finds the properties of masses of matter and resolves them into molecules, the chemist breaks up the molecule and from its atoms builds up other compounds. ”

“ That they might think clearly and suggestively about the properties of elements, and connect these with other chemical facts, they have translated the language of sense-perceptions into the language of thought, and, for properties of those substances which have not been decomposed, have used the more fertile expression atomic properties. When a chemist thinks of an atom, he thinks of the minutest particle of one of the substances which have the class-mark have-not-been-decomposed, and the class-name element. ”

“ In common with physics it includes the determination of properties or characters which serve to distinguish one substance from another, but while the physicist is concerned with properties possessed by all substances and with processes in which the molecules remain intact, the chemist is restricted to those processes in which the molecules undergo some change. ”

“ Any chemist, who will carefully survey the field, will be surprised at the immense amount of obviously important work which has hitherto been left undone, and which should take precedence of nearly all the chemical investigations now most in fashion. ”

“ Indeed, the different departments of chemistry are so interlaced that it is impossible to pursue investigations in any one branch without borrowing methods from the others; and the inorganic chemist must be familiar with all chemistry, if he is to make notable progress in his own branch of the subject. ”

“ Organic compounds, on which our life and living depend, consist chiefly of four elements: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. These compounds are sometimes hard to analyze, but when once the chemist has ascertained their constitution he can usually make them out of their elements—if he wants to. He will not want to do it as a business unless it pays and it will not pay unless the manufacturing process is cheaper than the natural process. ”

“ In trying to attach definite meanings to the alchemical accounts of Principles, Elements, and the One Thing, and the directions which the alchemists give for changing one substance into others, we are very apt to be misled by the use of such an expression as the transmutation of the elements. To a chemist that phrase means the change of an element into another element, an element being a definite substance, which no one has been able to produce by the combination of two or more substances unlike itself, or to separate into two or more substances unlike itself. ”

“ Water can be separated into two gases by a current of electricity.
The quick way chemists write about elements. Since everything in the world is made of a combination or a mixture of elements, chemists have found it very convenient to make abbreviations for the names of the elements so that they can quickly write what a thing is made of. They indicate hydrogen by the letter H. O always means oxygen to the chemist; C means carbon; and Cl means chlorine, the poison gas so much used in the World War. ”

“ There is no one part of the Arts and Sciences, but to which Chemistry has relation, and even the most important relation. In all manufactures, whether wood or metal—clay or stone—wax or glass—paper or cloth, or what not, the knowledge of Chemistry is essential. It is to the science of Chemistry that we owe all our artificial productions, it is to the science of Chemistry that we owe all our knowledge and comprehension of natural productions, and their adaption to our several uses. ”

“ This application of an almost metaphysical system of abstract signs, by which the motion of the hand performs the office of the mind, and of profound practical skill in mechanics alternately, to the construction of a most complicated engine, forcibly reminds us of a parallel m another science, where the chemist with difficulty succeeds in dissolving a refractory mineral, by the alternate action of the most powerful acids, and the most caustic alkalies, repeated in long-continued succession. ”

“ Chemistry is, in fact, the science which treats of the composition of all material bodies, and of the means of forming them into new combinations, and reducing them to their ultimate elements, as they are termed; that is, bodies which we are unable to split up, as it were, or separate into other bodies. To take a common substance as an illustration; water, by a great number of processes, can be separated into two other substances, called oxygen and hydrogen, in the proportion by weight of 8 parts of the first to 1 of the second ”

“ The labors of the chemist have revealed to us the presence of more than eighty distinct types of elements, each of which has a characteristic atomic weight, and in most cases sufficiently distinct physical and chemical properties to allow of its separation from any other element by the application of suitable methods. ”

“ AMONG the most significant advances in chemical theory are those relating to the action of heat on bodies. If we define chemistry, as I have been tempted to do, as that science which treats of the relations to one another of the different forms of mineral (i. e., unorganized) matter, and their transformations under the physical agencies of heat, light, and electricity, we shall see how difficult it is, in a sketch like this, to draw the line between physics and chemistry. ”

“ The facility with which chemical inquiries are carried on, and the simplicity of the apparatus, offer additional reasons, to those I have already given, for the pursuit of this science. It is not injurious to the health; the modern chemist is not like the ancient one, who passed the greater part of his time exposed to p. 174the heat and smoke of a furnace and the unwholesome vapours of acids and alkalies and other menstrua, of which, for a single experiment, he consumed several pounds. ”

“ So, when chemistry shall have reached the splendid future which I have ventured to suggest, it will only find itself possessed of materials with which to start for a grander future far away in the dim distance. We may expect that an exact knowledge of the laws governing the physical properties of substances will enable us to foresee just what compounds are possible, and by what reactions they may be obtained. Throughout the science, accurate calculation will be substituted for much abortive experiment, and both time and labor will be saved. ”

“ Chemistry and physics, however, meet on common ground in a well-defined branch of science, named physical chemistry, which is primarily concerned with the correlation of physical properties and chemical composition, and, more generally, with the elucidation of natural phenomena on the molecular theory. ”

“ PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI.
WHAT are the so-called chemical elements? Are they really elements, or only compounds of remarkable stability? It would be hard to find in physical science a question which has been oftener asked than this. It has furnished all sorts of investigators with abundant food for speculation. Men of the highest scientific ability have grappled with the problem, and left it still unsolved; others have constructed elaborate theories, which claimed to settle everything. ”

“ The chemist says, you cannot discover all the properties of hydrogen and oxygen by examining these substances apart from one another, for one of the most important properties of either is manifested only when the two mutually react: the formation of water is not the destruction of the properties of hydrogen and oxygen and the revelation of their essential substrata, it is rather the manifestation of a property of each which cannot be discovered except by causing the union of both. ”

“ For all great discoveries chemists are indebted to the "balance"—that incomparable instrument which gives permanence to every observation, dispels all ambiguity, establishes truth, detects error, and guides us in the true path of inductive science. ”

“ Every year some new application of chemical discoveries is made. To whom do we owe the possibility of these applications? My answer is distinctly: We owe it to those chemists who are engaged in investigations in the field of pure science. Everything that tends to the perfection of the science of chemistry is of value in connection with the applications of chemical truths. The most refined investigation on the most abstruse chemical subject may furnish a link in a chain of argument—may be the one thing needed to lead to a most important generalization. ”

“ After becoming acquainted with the constituent elements of all the substances within our reach and the mutual relations of these elements, the remarkable transmutations to which the bodies are subject under the influence of the vital powers of plants and animals, became the principal object of chemical investigations, and the highest point of interest. A new science, inexhaustible as life itself, is here presented us, standing upon the sound and solid foundation of a well established inorganic chemistry. ”

“ For example, the physicist determines the density, elasticity, hardness, electrical and thermal conductivity, thermal expansion, &c.; the chemist, on the other hand, investigates changes in composition, such as may be effected by an electric current, by heat, or when two or more substances are mixed. A further differentiation of the provinces of chemistry and physics is shown by the classifications of matter. ”