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Show 7 THE CITIZEN lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll'llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll. Ilium i V. aATIVE CHEMISTRY. I but we emphasize it here by way ol introducing this review of the splendid work of Mr. Slosson. Read the book, and you cannot fail to be enthralled by the marvelous achievements of the modern chemist. Read it and you will be enthused by the possibilities it foreshadows in every chapter. Read it, and you will understand why no nation can afford to be dependent upon any other nation for the products of creative chemistry. Only the scientific cognoscenti were aware, at the outbreak of the European war, to what degree all other nations were dependent on Germany. While thee layman fondly imagined that we were still in the steel age or the age of elctricity, they knew that the age of chemistry had begun years recent achievements in the 'hemical industries. By Edwin E. 1V0 Published by The Century wil losjion. nty Ill A Wonder Book of Facts Wh pr I . ompany, New York. ntn the scientific control of nature ions maintain their independence. ven nation that lags behind in science liable to destruction, that were hese are maxims Kplft led. upon us by the attempt of a ind ntific nation to dominate the is !ld. Had not Germany revealed a given her by her scientists ne pqwer nations would still be permitting gne to forge new fetters for their dentation. It was the war that to her rivals their dependence for the very things they ned- maintain their armies and their y i ar , dis-encp- d. ago. of ea. ani an address to the National Manufacturers in 1919 Francis P. Van, alien property custodian, told : the Germans had conspired to re5dicap the United States, as well ra the, allies, by withholding the which German science had shelved and which were equally use- life in peace or war. hinfn April 25, 1915, Captain Boy-E0 seise memory still lingers with us, avete to Dr. Albert: eucfpodays World prints the enclosed fieldft article on the alleged erection cieriye factories in New Jersey by the sionmans. In case you are not able to ar3 any steps to prevent an undertak-wil- l of this kind, I am requesting you nundicate to whose attention I could iral the matter. Aghree days later Dr. Albert replied: eriewith regard to dyes, I got in touch h local experts in order to deter-deal- e what truth there is in the news. eartording to my knowledge of things, On matter is a fake, inasmuch as our ivories have bound themselves by word of honor to do nothing or:he present situation which might ) the United States. STere was a revelation which led to establishment of Americas chem-k independence. The greatest and u iest of nations found itself at the cy of the people who held the -- Rearic secrets of creative chemistry, bout most wonderful and valuable of fainiem sciences. Cot-co- nl 5 pro-eat- ts d, i oral-wil.n- d a said Dr. The German chemist, weitzer proudly and confidently, trl'ors so far contributed as much, if not baitte, to the success of the campaign 3orka the strategist, the army and the Tby and, therefore, the present liolo-- e da'st may justly he called the chem-ic- e . ( war. "'lie deeper we got into the conflict more we found out about the (&zing plot of German firms in this 1 v fctnry to shackle us by actually Into contracts to supply the emment with aparatus which they on not mean to deliver. t is, of course, a twice-tol- d tale, en-,lng- It is rather easy, if not quite safe, to trace the progress of civilization by arbitrarily designated ages. In Asia Minor and Egypt there were the ages of formative religion. In Greece there was the age of philosophy and aesthetic development. Then Rome made civilizations laws. The Middle Ages held back barbarism and conserved knowledge for the scientific ages, which of course, began with the invention of printing, that is to say, with the cheap and rapid means of communicating information. Dr. Slosson, viewing progress from a different aspect, tells us that there have been three periods in the conquest of nature by man: The Appropriative Period. The Adaptive Period. The Creative Period. The primitive man, he says, picks up whatever he can find available for use. His successor in the next stage of culture shapes and develops this crude instrument until it becomes more suitable for his purpose. But in the course of time man often finds that he can make something new which is better than anything in nature or naturally produced. The savage discovers, the barbarian improves, the civilized man invents. The first finds. The second fashions. The third fabricates. Alluding to a letter he received from a critis who quoted one of Shakesaws about mans speares over-wis-e inability to better nature, he says: I will give a million dollars to anybody finding in nature dyestuffs as numerous, varied, brilliant, pure and cheap as those that are manufactured I haven't that in the laboratory. amount of money with me at the moment, but the dyers would be glad to put it up for the discovery of a satisfactory natural source for theirWe eaninctorial materials not, in a general and abstract fashion, say which is superior, art or nature, because it all depends on the point The worm loves a rotten of view. 'log into which he can bore. Man prefers a steel cabinet Into which the If man cannot worm cannot bore. 9 improve on nature he has no motive for making anything. Artificial products are, therefore, superior to na- laud bus been staked into homesteads and we cannot turn to new soil when we have used up the old, we must learn, as the older races have learned, how to keep up the supply of plant food. Only In this way can our population Increase and prosper. As we have seen .the phosphate question need not bother us, and we can see our way clear toward solving the nitrate question. We gave the government $:0I000,Q00 to experiment on the production of nitrates from their and the results will serve for. fields as well as firearms. Rut the question of an independent supply of cheap potash is still unsolved. tural products as measured by man's otherwise they would convenience, have nor eason for existence. Science and Christianity are at one in abhorring the natural man and calling on the civilized man to fight and subdue him. The conquest of nature, not the imitation of nature, is the whole duty of man. Metchnikoff and St. Paul unite in criticizing the body we were born with. St. Augustine and Iluxley are in agreement as to the eternal conflict nature, jin his between man and Ramanes lectures on Evolution and The ethical Ethics, Huxley said: of progress society depends not on imitating the cosmic process, still less on running away from it, but To give an indication just a hint of what is meant by creative chemistry, we quote the following: on com- bating it, and again The history of civilization details the steps by which man lias succeeded in building up an artificial world within the cosmos. Now Chemists would be content to limit their speculations to their own science, but the author of this work, being a scholar and a philosopher, submits to no such trammels, and we are the fortunate possessors, therefore, of his lucubrations in the fields of philosophy, sociology and economics. It is only by overcoming nature that man can rise. The sole salvation of the human race lies in the removal of the primal curse, the sentence of hard labor for life that was imposed on man as he left Paradise. Some folks are trying to elevate the laboring classes; some are trying lo keep them down. The scientist has a more radical remedy; he wants to annihilate the labor- neither human nor animal servitude is necessary to give man leisure for the higher life, for by means of the machine he can do the work of giants (Irailu- without exhaustion. for' the ally then he will substitute natural world an artificial world, moldMan ed nearer to his heart's desire. Namaster the Artifex will ultimately own ture and reign supreme over his creation until chaos shall come again. but list the topics he we shall apreciate the value of the authors contribution to the popular literature of science. He treats of the extraction of nitrogen from the air, the feeding of the soil, coal-ta- r colors, synthetic perfumes and flavors, cellulose, synthetic plastics, the race for rubber, the rival sugars, what comes from corn, solidified sunshine, (lla-cuss- that all that comes out of coal-ta- r is contained in it. There are only about a dozen primary products extracted from coal-ta- r, but from these the chemist is able to build up hundreds of thousands of new substances. This is true creative chemistry, for most of these compounds are not to be found in plants and never existed before they were made In the laboratory. It used to be thought that organic compounds, the products of vegetable and animal life, could only be produced by organized beings, that they were created out of inorganic matter by the touch of some "vital principle. Rut since the chemist has learned how, he finds it easier to make organic than inorganic substances and he is confident that he ing classes by abolishing labor. There is no longer any need for human labor in the sense of personal toil, for the physical energy necessary to accomplish all kinds of work may be obtained from external sources and it can be directed and controlled without extreme exertion. Mans first efforts, in this direction was to throw part of his burden upon the horse or the ox or upon other men. Rut within the last century it has been discovered that If we r is the scrap-hea- p of the vegetable system. It contains a little of almost everything that makes up trees. Rut you must not imagine coal-ta- es fighting with fumes, products of the electric furnace and metals, old and new. There is a word of wise admonition for Americans who do not realize that we cannot depend forever upon our natural resources. They have given us our wealth and power, but the time is coming when we shall be compelled to struggle, as Germany struggled, to replace the exhaustion and poverty of nature with the artificial treasure of can reproduce any compound that he can analyze. He cannot only Imitate the manufacturing process of the plants and animals, but he can often beat them at their own game. How government may make a failure of business by allowing politics to control is disclosed by the trouble England Is having in her attempts to establish a dye industry: Roth Great Rritain and the United States realized the danger of allowing Germany to recover her former monopoly, and both have shown a readiness to cast overboard their traditional policies to meet this emergency. The Rritish government has discovered that a country without tariff is a land without walls. The American government has discovered that an industry is not benefited by being cut into small pieces. Roth governments now are doing all they can to build up big concerns and provide them with protection. Tlie Rritish government assisted in the formation of a national company for the manufacture of synh of the thetic dyes by taking stock and providing $.pi00J)00,000 for a research laboratory. Rut this effort is now reported to bo a great failure because the government put it In charge of the politicians instead of F. K G. tin chemists. one-sixt- THE REAL REASON. A medical student was talking to a surgeon about a case. What did you operate on the man for? the student asked. Three hundred dollars, replied the surgeon. Yes, I know, said the student. I mean, what did the man have? Three hundred dollars, replied the surgeon. science. kissed her on the ruby lips, She was a lovely critter, But there are slips twixt lips and lips And so she thinks I bit cr. I For the last throe hundred yours the American people have been living on the unoarened increment of the unoccupied land. Rut now that all our |