Part 7 (1/2)
”The Republic has no need of chemists; the course of justice cannot be suspended,” was the reply.
On the 8th of May 1794, the guillotine did its work; and in his fifty-first year Lavoisier ”joined the majority.” To the honour of the Academy of which he was so ill.u.s.trious a member it is recorded that a deputation of his fellow-workers in science, braving the wrath of Robespierre, penetrated to the dungeons of the prison and placed a wreath on the grave of their comrade.
The period of the infancy of chemical science which I have now briefly described is broadly contemporaneous with the second half of the eighteenth century.
At this time the minds of men were greatly stirred. Opinions and beliefs consecrated by the a.s.sent of generations of men were questioned or denied; the pretensions of civil and ecclesiastical authorities were withstood; a.s.sertions however strongly made, and by whatever authority supported, were met by demands for reasons. In France this revolt against mere authority was especially marked. Led by the great thinker Voltaire, the French philosophers attacked the generally accepted views in moral, theological and historical matters. A little later they began to turn with eager attention and hope to the facts of external Nature. Physical science was cultivated with wonderful vigour and with surprising success.
In the sciences of heat and light we have at this time the all-important works of Fourier, Prevost and Fresnel; in geology and natural history we have Buffon and Cuvier; the name of b.i.+.c.hat marks the beginning of biological science, and chemistry takes rank as a science only from the time of Lavoisier.
From the philosophers an interest in natural science spread through the ma.s.s of the people. About the year 1870 the lecture-rooms of the great teachers of chemistry, astronomy, electricity, and even anatomy were crowded with ladies and gentlemen of fas.h.i.+on in the French capital. A similar state of matters was noticeable in this country. Dr. Black's lecture theatre was filled by an audience which comprised many young men of good position. To know something of chemistry became an essential part of the training of all who desired to be liberally educated.
The secrets of Nature were now rapidly explored; astonis.h.i.+ng advances were made, and as a matter of course much opposition was raised.
In this active, inquiring atmosphere the young science of chemistry grew towards maturity.
Priestley, ever seeking for new facts, announcing discovery after discovery, attacking popular belief in most matters, yet satisfied to interpret his scientific discoveries in terms of the hypothesis with which he was most familiar, was the pioneer of the advancing science. He may be compared to the advance-guard sent forward by the explorers of a new country with orders to clear a way for the main body: his work was not to level the rough parts of the way, or to fill in the miry places with well-laid metal, but rather rapidly to make a road as far into the heart of the country as possible.
And we have seen how well he did the work. In his discovery of various kinds of airs, notably of oxygen, he laid the basis of the great generalizations of Lavoisier, and, what was perhaps of even more importance, he introduced a new method into chemistry. He showed the existence of a new and unexplored region. Before his time, Hooke and Mayow had proved the existence of more than one kind of air, but the chemistry of gases arose with the discoveries of Priestley.
Although Black's chief research, on fixed air and on latent heat, was completed fifteen or twenty years before Priestley's discovery of oxygen, yet the kind of work done by Black, and its influence on chemical science, mark him as coming after Priestley in order of development. We have seen that the work of Black was characterized by thoroughness and suggestiveness. The largeness of scope, the breadth of view, of this great philosopher are best ill.u.s.trated in his discourses on heat; he there leads us with him in his survey of the domain of Nature, and although he tells us that hypotheses are a ”mere waste of time,” we find that it is by the strength of his imagination that he commands a.s.sent. But he never allows the imagination to degenerate into fanciful guesses; he vigorously tests the fundamental facts of his theory, and then he uses the imagination in developing the necessary consequences of these facts.
To Black we owe not only the first rigorously accurate chemical investigation, but also the establishment of just ideas concerning the nature of heat.
But Lavoisier came before us as a greater than either Priestley or Black.
To great accuracy and great breadth of view he added wonderful power of generalizing; with these, aided by marked mental activity and, on the whole, favourable external circ.u.mstances, he was able finally to overthrow the loose opinions regarding combustion and elementary principles which prevailed before his time, and so to establish chemistry as one of the natural sciences.
At the close of the first period of advance we find that the sphere of chemistry has been defined; that the object of the science has been laid down, as being to find an explanation of the remarkable changes noticed in the properties of bodies; that as a first step towards the wished-for explanation, all material substances have been divided by the chemist into elements and compounds; that an element has been defined as any kind of matter from a given weight of which no simpler forms of matter--that is, no kinds of matter each weighing less than the original matter--have as yet been obtained; that the great principle of the indestructibility of matter has been established, viz. that however the properties of matter may be altered, yet the total ma.s.s (or quant.i.ty) remains unchanged; and lastly, we find that an explanation of one important cla.s.s of chemical changes--those changes which occur when substances burn--has been found.
And we have also learned that the method by which these results were obtained was this--to go to Nature, to observe and experiment accurately, to consider carefully the results of these experiments, and so to form a general hypothesis; by the use of the mental powers, and notably by the use of the imagination, to develop the necessary deductions from this hypothesis; and finally, to try these deductions by again inquiring from Nature ”whether these things were so.”
Before the time which we have been considering the paths of chemical science had scarcely yet been trodden. Each discovery was full of promise, each advance displayed the possibility of further progress; the atmosphere was filled as with ”a mighty rus.h.i.+ng wind” ready to sweep away the old order of things. The age was an age of doubt and of freedom from the trammels of authority; it was a time eminently suited for making advances in natural knowledge.
In the unceasing activity of Priestley and Lavoisier we may trace the influence of the restlessness of the age; but in the quietness and strength of the best work of these men, and notably in the work of Black; in the calmness with which Priestley bore his misfortunes at Birmingham; in the n.o.ble words of Lavoisier, ”I am not unwilling to part with life, but I ask time to finish my experiments, because the results will, I believe, be for the good of humanity”--we see the truth of the a.s.sertion made by one who was himself a faithful student of Nature--
”Nature never did betray The heart that loved her.”
FOOTNOTES:
[4] The translation is taken from Thomson's ”History of Chemistry.”
[5] Nevertheless, in other places Lavoisier most readily acknowledges the merits of Priestley.
[6] A similar method of reasoning was employed so far back as the tenth century: thus, in an Anglo-Saxon ”Manual of Astronomy” we read, ”There is no corporeal thing which has not in it the four elements, that is, air and fire, earth and water.... Take a stick and rub it on something, it becomes hot directly with the fire which lurks in it; burn one end, then goeth the moisture out at the other end with the smoke.”
CHAPTER III.
ESTABLISHMENT OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF CHEMICAL SCIENCE--PERIOD OF DALTON.