Chemists as Autobiographers Margaret Millar and Ian T. Millar The University, Keele, Staffordshire, England
Autobiography is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as: "the writing of one's own history: the story of one's life written by himself." Extension of this defmition bas heen held to include other forms of literarv self-revelation such as memoirs, journals, diaries, letters, and even poetry (e.g., Wordsworth's The Prelude). The present discussion is limited to the first of these additional latter categories, because for a number of distinguished chemists such memoirs are the only autobiographical material we have; sundry illuminating letters between hoth fellow chemists and others (e.g., those of Berzelius, Liehig, Wohler) have been, in general, omitted. Turning briefly to the much wider area of biography, it is not easy to know if chemists have been more frequent suhjects than have other varieties of scientist. Certainly some classic chemical heroes have been remarkably popular suhjects for hook-length hiograpbic studies (notably Priestlev, Lavoisier, Davy, and ~as&u;), and recent years have seen studies of penetrating value of some less familiar figures (e.g., M. Crosland's "Gay-Lussac") (1). Chemists in general escaped the plethora of had biography in the inter-war period. For many maior chemists of the last centurv. the hiograwhical material in ihe Chemical Society's ~ e m o i i a~l e c t i r e H( 2 ) is of great value; as is the Society's volume "British Chemists" (3) and its obituary notices, and those of Fellows of the Royal Society (4). Eduard Farher's "Great Chemists" (5) (1961) provides a valuable one-volume compilation, not rich in references, and tending to euloav. but usefullv correcting the somewhat deficient'treatmez of ~ m e r i c a nchemists displayed in the sources previously mentioned. The "Dictionary of Scientific Biography" edited-in-chief by C. C. Gillispie (61, gives biographies with useful references, not limited by nationality or scientific discipline, and including some 600 chemists deceased before the 1970's, in its sixteen volumes. Biography complements autohiography, if only because of the need that frequently arises to reconcile a writer's own view of their work andpersonality with that taken by others. The latter usually have the benefit of a longer perspective, at least in time, with, ideally, a broader view also being available through development of the suhject. Autohioeraohv - . "is a oost-classical. Eurowean form of writing in which the author looks a t his life, his personality, and the interplay between them. I t shades into memoirs, reminiscences, diaries, letters, and interviews, but is distinct from all of these in that it reviews the whole of a life (or a portion of it) from a fairly brief period of time. Attention in autobiography is focussed on the uersonality of the self, and in a memoir on other persons; while in an interview, the very direction of discussion is not under the full control of the suhject. Rov Pascal 17) has defined autohioeranhv Droner as involving "the reconstruction of the movement of a life, or part of a life. in the actual circumstances in which it was lived. Its centre of interest is the self, not the outside world. . . ."But he sees achievement of the task as wracticallv imwossible in its ideal form. In reality, the writer shapes his past, imposes a uattern, contrives a coherent stow. " . achieves some relation hetween the self and the outer world, all from a position in time and from a status which allows him to see (or claim to see) some order and unity in his life. Discrimination, selection, and choice of standpoint all determine whether the result presents truth, distortion, or falsehood. Those autobiographical writers who are major and acknowledged successes in their field are
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fortunate in that their standpoint was chosen for them. Career development and a consistent pattern are there to he discerned, sometimes with seductive ease. The role of chance, the false start, and other of life's lacunae are omitted. As Pascal says, the result is "an interplay, a collusion, between past and present; its significance is indeed more the revelation of the present situation than the uncovering of the past." Memory subconsciously adjusts, to rationalize the life span that is past. The writer reveals himself through what he recalls, how he adjusts his memories, and how he interprets them. In general, the autobiography which is significant must be the work of a personality not itself trivial. Our main purpose here is to survey the published and reasonahlv accessible autohioerawhies of chemists (including - . some concerned with chemical physics, chemical t&hnolo& and molecular biology) recording convenient and authoritative sources, and citing English translations of foreign language works where possible. The autobiographers are discussed in order of birthdate. We have attempted to assess their contributions both as autobiographers and as chemists, and (in a later part) to begin to answer the questions: what sort of men are these, who have achieved success in the studv of matter from a chemical viewpoint, and who have writtenabout their lives, or an important part of them? What patterns, if any, of background and upbringing, of aptitude and opportunity, do they have in common, in their own estimation? The First Autobiographies The word "autohioeraohv" seems to have been first used & indeed relatively few such in 1797 in the ~ o n t h l i ~ & x and studies had been unhlished vreviouslv. The wrototvoe .. of the scientist's autobiography add almostthe first modern autobiography in its style is the powerful De Vita Propria Liber ("Book of My Life") by Girolamo Cardano ( 8 ) (1575) the Milanese polymath whose work in medicine is now eclipsed by his distinction as one of the greatest algebraists of his century. He recognized negative and comvlex roots for equations, found the relations between the roots of an equation and the coefficients of its terms, and gave a now-familiar fur aJvinl: cul~irequimuni. I I I c has general a l g h i ~ i merh i fiL.hin:: this nierl~odirtrm 'l'.~rradlia, hut rhr accusation has been contested (6.) Cardano's autohiography is such a striking example of the genre and exemplifies so much, that i t deserves particular comment. In time, it spans virtually all that is available to any autohiograuher, and more. He reoorts the reoeated attemnts . . t o tulum his birth in l > d l , and tli'.ir l ~ ~ i l u rhen e he w t i s h'wn "alm~mdeild . . .and revived in ;I \lath u t \ w r t n win(." I r ends the device of a find sentence in which the reader inserts thk date of death.) Cardano's "Book of My Life" deals with a remarkable life, and seeks "not simply the historical truth of actions and events, hut the truth of his personality, his feelings, impulses and ideas; his method is analytical and the deeper he penetrates, the more involved becomes his orohlem" 17). The picture which emerges is of a complex, vital, fascinating, and tragic personality with a remarkable capacity for self-analysis, and well aware of the elusiveness of "truth." He poses the question "what am I?" as well as answers to "what I am." In Volume GO
Number 5
May 1983
365
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