But, besides teaching the general principles of chemical science, it is important to give the student a more or less extended knowledge of chemical facts and processes—especially such as play an important part in daily life, or in the arts—and such knowledge can readily be given in this connection. Beyond this I do not deem it desirable to go in an elementary course of instruction. The way, however, is now opened to the most advanced fields of the science. A comparison of symbols and reactions leads at once to the doctrine of quantivalence, and to the results of modern structural chemistry which this doctrine involves. Among these results there is of course much that is fanciful, but there is also a very large substratum of established truth; and if the student thoroughly comprehends the symbolical language of chemistry, and understands the facts it actually represents, he will be able to realize, so far as is now possible, the truths which underlie the conventional forms.
The study of the structure of molecules naturally leads to the study of their stability, and of the conditions which determine chemical changes, and thus opens the recently explored field of thermo-chemistry. To be able to predict the order and results of possible conditions of association of materials, or of chemical changes under all circumstances, is now the highest aim of our science, and we have already made very considerable progress toward this end.
But I have detained you too long, and I must refer to the "New Chemistry" for a fuller exposition of this subject. My object has been gained if I have been able to make clear to you that it is possible to present the science of chemistry as a systematic body of truths independent of the mass of details with which the science is usually encumbered, and make the study a most valuable means of training the power of inductive reasoning, and thus securing the great end of scientific culture.
XII.
"NOBLESSE OBLIGE."
In the former essays of this volume I have earnestly maintained that scientific culture, rightly understood, is a suitable basis for a liberal education; and I have maintained this thesis without in any way attempting to disparage that literary culture hitherto so generally regarded as the only basis on which the liberal arts could be built. While, however, I have argued that, in the present condition of the world, there is more than one basis of true scholarship, I have fully admitted that for far the larger number of scholars, including all those whose lives are to be occupied with literary pursuits, the old system of education is still the best. Moreover, I have endeavored to point out that scientific culture in no way conflicts with literary culture; that it has a different spirit, a different method, and a different aim; and I have only recommended it as suitable to those who are distinctly preparing themselves for a scientific calling; but I have maintained that for such men scientific studies, rightly followed, may lead to a broad, a noble, and in the truest sense a liberal education.
I have used the term scientific culture rightly understood in order to mark a distinction; because a great deal that passes for scientific scholarship in the world does not imply true scientific culture. In all departments of learning, and not less in scientific than in literary studies, erudition does not necessarily imply a high degree of culture. We all value the labors of the lexicographer, and the work may be so done as to task the noblest intellectual power; but there is a higher form of literary culture than that which dictionary-making usually implies. So also in science, no amount of book-learning constitutes what we have called scientific culture rightly understood. For example, the ability to pass an examination on the facts and principles of science is no test whatever of the form of culture we are advocating. Not that we underrate the value of such tests, or of the knowledge they imply; but the ability to master a subject as presented in a text-book, and to state that knowledge in a concise and accurate form, is the normal result of literary, not of scientific culture. The power to do something well is involved in the very idea of culture, and the scholar who can pass a successful written examination has acquired a power which literary culture chiefly gives, and that this power may be applied to scientific as well as literary subjects is obvious. Here is a most important distinction in connection with our subject. Culture implies the acquisition of some power of the mind in an eminent degree, and such power is constantly associated with erudition, simply because it leads to erudition. But when we see erudition without such power, as we often do in every department of scholarship, we perceive at once upon how much lower a level it stands. What very different things are classical scholarship and classical erudition; and is not the power which the great classical scholars possess of interpreting the thoughts of the classical authors, and of reproducing their life, the great element of difference between the two?
So scientific culture implies the ability to interpret Nature, to observe her phenomena, and to investigate her laws. The scholar, to whom Nature presents merely an orderly succession of facts and phenomena, knows nothing of true scientific culture. As there is a spirit in the great writers of classical antiquity which ennobles the study of the forms in which the thoughts of these authors were expressed, so also is there a spirit in Nature without which facts and phenomena, however well classified, create no intellectual elevation. The last century of the world's history has been marked, more than by anything else, by the increase of our knowledge of Nature, and it will be known in history as the age of great discoveries; but valuable as the facts and principles of science certainly are, greatly as they have promoted the well-being of mankind, and important, therefore, as the knowledge of these facts and principles must be to man, yet nevertheless I should never urge the claims of physical science as a basis of liberal education if they could be defended on no other grounds than these. It is here as elsewhere "the spirit which giveth life"; and the power to interpret Nature, and to commune with the intelligence that rules the universe, is the one acquisition which, above all others, gives worth and dignity to the form of culture we have endeavored to advocate in these essays.
Those who regard science simply as utilitarianism, and who value scientific studies solely because they teach men how to build railroads, to explore mines, to extract the useful metals from their ores, or to increase the yield of agriculture, have an even more imperfect conception of what is meant by scientific culture than those to whom science is merely a valuable erudition. It is true that physics and chemistry may be studied as arts rather than as sciences, and we have no desire to underrate the importance of such technical education; but the difference between the two modes of study is as wide as the difference between the artisan and the scholar. In asserting this we do not forget that the occupations of the engineer, the electrician, and the analytical chemist demand a very large amount of knowledge, judgment, and skill, and are rightly regarded as learned professions. But let it not be supposed that skill in such professions is the end or aim of scientific culture; any more than legal skill is the end or aim of literary culture. If literary scholars regard the study of science solely from this point of view, it is no wonder that they think that the tone of scholarship would be lowered if it rested solely on such a utilitarian basis; and, on the other hand, if they could once realize the sublimity of Nature, as Copernicus, Newton, Faraday, and unnumbered others have realized it, this fear that devotion to science must degrade scholarship would disappear.