CHANGING ATTITUDES IN THE HISTORY OF CHEMISTRY*
The rapid development of chemistry at any fiarticular period of history has depended upon the general attitude of the world at that time and is not so much a development due to some .particular discovery. The changing attitudes in history have brought about the changing periods of chemistry. This i s illustrated in detail for the ordinarily used periods of the history of chemistry.
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We are accustomed to ascribe any general advance in the science of chemistry t o the activity following some outstanding discovery. Some investigator, either scientifically or accidentally, made some discovery which to us seems epoch-making since i t has been written about and we have talked so much about it and have given i t so much prominence. We conclude that the advancement in the science must have come about simply because of this discovery. Sometimes it is a group of men who have given forth a new theory; a t least we are willing to include more than one as being responsible for it. We say this event or this theory or law marks the sudden expansion of the science. Such circumstances as these which have been mentioned no doubt had some bearing upon the development of the science of chemistry. However, there are major facts in the general attitude of mankind at different periods which have just as important bearings upon the immediate development of the science as had the facts within the science itself. It is proposed to call attention to some of these attitudes and to note how the science of chemistry was developed by satisfying the desires of people in general. The history of chemistry has quite commonly been divided into the following periods: (1) The Ancient Period, (2) The Period of Alchemy, (3) The Medical Period, (4) The Phlogiston Period, ( 5 ) The Oxygen Period, (6) The Electron Period. Considering the Ancient Period, let us ask the question: What was the attitude of people in general and what was the effect of this attitude on scientific development? I n those times people thought that nature was the work of the gods, and that it was irreverent to investigate or disturb it. They thought that the gods worked a t random and carried out passing whims. This led to the idea of four primary elements which were likely a t any moment to change into each other according to the whims of the gods. There were interesting discoveries. Men ventured to set forth theories which might have been fruitful in immediate scientific growth, but the attitude of men in general was not favorable t o growth. It was the thoughts of men who were not making experiments that prevented development. Naturally progress was therefore mostly accidental.
* Presented before the Division of History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society at Columbus, Ohio. April 30. 1929. 610
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As years went by men awakened to the fact that nature might be looked into. There was a universal longing for life and a continuous and extended life. There was a universal longing for money which might be obtained with little or no effort. These universal desires (not scientific desires) led men to look about them and to try to gratify their desires for life and money by some prying into the secrets of nature. Nature must know these things and nature must have the secrets in her hands. There followed these common desires a quest for the Philosopher's Stone and The Elixir of Life; quests which took men through many dangers seeking for the fountain of youth, and led men to many experiments t o try to make gold from cheaper metals or common things. Surely these quests were not the outcome of some great chemical discovery, but they led men to experiment and to try to investigate. Men were willing to finance these searchings and many were led to engage in them, and thus we have the story of the long Period of Alchemy. These quests for the one substance of magical value which would give life eternal, and the one substance or principle which would give gold without limit failed, but in the search men found remedies for diseases and men found metals and their salts. The world then changed its notion or attitude and said there must he many remedies for the many diseases; maybe a particular remedy for each disease. Mankind was calling for these remedies and the chemists entered upon the search with the Medical Period of chemistry as the result. Paracelsus was a leader and blazed the way, but the world was calling for the very activity upon which Paracelsus and his followers entered. It was not started by the incentive of some revolutionary discovery in the science, but it was from the changinx attitude of mankind. Mankind has not lost this attitude and the search still continues. The attitude of mind is that each disease or affliction of mankind has its remedy, and we are dght in the midst of the activities which come naturally from this attitude of mind. If it is a germ, we look for an antitoxin; if a condition of blood, we look for the chemical which will supply the lacking material; if it is a letting down of some bodily process, we search for the stimulus to right the condition. We have the attitude of mind that there is a cure for each wrong condition if we can only find i t Before, it was a general cure for all wrong conditions. One brought about the seeking for a general cure, the other brings about the seeking for many cures. The period following the so-called Iatro Period or Medical Period we designate as a period because it was a time when a peculiar notion existed as t o the nature of combustion. I n the developments of the preceding period many questions arose which men tried to answer. This one of explaining lire was an outstanding one, and in the light of later events was the leading problem of the time, but it was not due to some suddm discovery
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of some chemist or some group of chemists. It came about in a time when men were asking questions about everything. They wanted to know the foundation of religion, of statecraft, of philosophy and, naturally, of science too. It was the questioning of men in general that led to the suggestion of a theory of combustion, not simply the questioning of some great chemist. New continents had been discovered, new laws about physical and astronomical things had been laid down. The world was looking for the reason for things and for a broader view of the phenomena of nature. As this Phlogiston Period went on apace, more and more did men go into the search for fundamental reasons for chemical facts. The world asked for men who would go into this work and had them installed in educational centers. The universal demand for fixed and definite conclusions induced men in private life to set up laboratories or working places. There was the same agitation in political life. "Are kings necessary?" they asked. There came on the French restlessness, the American Revolution, the enlarging of citizens' rights. If there was activity in these other lines, why not in chemistry? Yes, important things did come from this activity; the discovery of hydrogen, the discovery of oxygen, and all the other outstanding discoveries of the times; but, mind you, there were more men working along these lines a t this time than there were forty years after the time of these discoveries. The world was demanding such things; the attitude was to go forward and to know. The discovery of oxygen was not the cause; i t was only one of the events resulting from this great push of mankind. The modern idea that everything is fixed and unchangeable came about when laws were discovered and laid down; ultimate particles that are fixed and unchanging, elements which cannot be subdivided, compounds always the same. At the present time we are apparently emerging from this attitude of mind and going over to an attitude that would regard matter as always changing. I n this attitude of mind elements and compounds are only a place or step in the eternal changing. We are jumping to guesses such as believing that matter and energy are one and the same thing. We are still measuring velocities, charges, colors, activities, resistances, and whatnot, but, after all, these are only relativities and just a part of the cosmic changes. These things are constants for us, for time for them may be measured in thousands of milleniums, but for us it is in minutes. What is time anyway? Some have the attitude now that things are only definite and fixed for a limited time, and that all is subject to change. In political life we are still in the period of laws, laws, laws, with legislators thinking they are gods. If political, social, religious, and scientific attitudes all kept marching in step, these changing attitudes would not come into codict with each other, but one changes slowly and another more rapidly and hence the two are in different stages a t a given time and
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there is a conflict. Science has changed its viewpoint or attitude toward nature and hence its methods for the study of nature change. The attitude of religion toward science has changed. In early times i t was believed that those who were trying to investigate nature were sacrilegious and should be suppressed. That attitude is still in the minds of some. Now, however, religion has the attitude of saying to the scientist, study, investigate, find out, set up theories, and verify or disprove them. We try to get some chemical fact or set of facts to locate another period or other periods of chemistry, but where shall we locate the beginning of the period? Shall we say the beginning of organic chemistry, or the discovery of germs, and germicides, or the acceptance of the atomic theory, or the birth of agricultural chemistry, or the rise of physical chemistry, or the meeting with colloids, or the advent of the electron, or the discovery of radium; where shall we locate the periods? We have this difficulty because we still have the same attitude of mankind that we had a century and a half ago, namely, mankind wants to know, they want nature investigated and investigated to the limit, they are willing to give up old notions and to listen to new theories--so we are still in the period which led to the discovery of oxygen and to the rise of organic chemistry and all the rest. The science is growing because of the attitude of the world. At no time did the attitude of men in general have more effect than just before and during the early days of the oxygen theory of combustion. It was a time of trying new theories, of trying to get away from the things of the past. This feeling affected the political life and led men to give themselves to the study of national life. Our Revolution was one of the episodes along this line. It led men to wander from the accepted theories in religion and to preach new notions. It led men to study physical nature and we had the numerous workers in chemistry who found hydrogen and oxygen and the alkali metals and many other new things. Men made over the methods of talking and writing about chemical elements and their compounds. Just as our nation was started in its independent existence, chemistry was really started in its independent existence and it has been developing rapidly ever since. Let me speak of another attitude and its bearing upon our science of chemistry. One hundred years ago the world was interested in chemistry but it was not asking the chemist to make over the manufacturing activities. In the century how the attitude has changed, in f a d it has changed in the last forty years. Some manufacturers were led to try out the possibilities of having their crude materials and products examined by a chemist. They found that it paid them financially. Others learned of the fact that it paid and they tried. Then the chemist told them where they could better their processes or could adopt new processes, and this paid too. Today the attitude of the commercial world is that chemistry
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can solve her problems for her and so she is calling for chemists in almost every line of manufacturing or commercial endeavor, and we have the present outstanding developments in industrial chemistry. When the world changed its attitude the industrial chemist became a reality. Forty years ago there were very few of those who were then called "dollar chemists" because the world was not asking for industrial chemists. Today they are numbered by the thousands because the world has changed its attitude and is asking for industrial chemists. It pays them to guarantee this army of industrial chemists and the world is looking for more of them. The fact that a given development or discovery in chemistry may have had a decided influence on the development of the science in the years following that discovery is not overlooked. For example, the discovery of anesthetics led to wonderful developments in medical chemistry. Anesthetics made operations possible and operations called for more and better anesthetics, for antiseptics, for better tools, for a knowledge of the chemistry of internal secretions, and many other things. Such developments are not to be ignored, but back of these discoveries there was a major influence in the attitude of mankind toward the things which belonged to the realm of chemistry. These different attitudes a t different historical periods had the deciding influence on whether or not there should follow a development of the science or of a given branch of it. Not always did a radical change in the attitude of the world toward a given activity affect all activities. Neither did a period of decided change in the world attitude in general affect all activities in exactly the same years. New political attitudes might either precede or follow religious attitudes by a few years, hence new and decided changes in the scientific attitude might precede or follow the changes in other activities by a few years. The Refonnation made a decided change in the world attitude on religion. It had a profound influence on education and freedom of thought but it did not make a decided change in science. It did make a decided change in that i t awakened mankind to a new adventure but i t did not change the ideas as to methods of governments. So we are led to observe that it was the attitude of mankind toward the things involved in the science of chemistry which brought about radical changes when the desires of men changed. Mankind in general did not know or realize that their changing notions would have any such bearing, nor did they think in terms of the advances which came as a sequence to their desires. Again it may be said that particular discoveries have often immediate effects and sometimes very decided delayed effects upon the development of the science, but far more decided and universal in their effects are the attitudes of humanity toward the things of l i e and the things of nature. These changing attitudes are the fundamental causes of scientific developments.
