Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/685

 Rh of warmest affection. While in me the predominating inclination was to seek out the points of resemblance in the behavior of bodies or their compounds, he possessed an unparalleled faculty of perceiving their differences. A keenness of observation was combined in him with an artistic dexterity, and an ingeniousness in discovering new means and methods of research or analysis such as few men possess. The achievement of our joint work upon uric acid and oil of bitter almonds has frequently been praised; it was his work. I can not sufficiently highly estimate the advantage which the association with Wöhler brought to me in the attainment of my own as well as our mutual aims, for by that association were united the peculiarities of two schools—the good that was in each became effective by co-operation. Without envy and without jealousy, hand in hand, we pursued our way; when the one needed help the other was ready. Some idea of this relationship will be obtained if I mention that many of our smaller pieces of work which bear our joint names were done by one alone; they were charming little gifts which one presented to the other.

After sixteen years of the most laborious activity I collected the results gained, so far as they related to plants and animals, in my Chemistry applied to Agriculture and Physiology, two years later in my Animal Chemistry, and the researches made in other directions in my Chemical Letters. The last-mentioned was generally received as a popular work, which, to those who study it more closely, it really is not, or was not at the time when it appeared. Mistakes were made, not in the facts, but in the deductions about organic reactions; we were the first pioneers in unknown regions, and the difficulties in the way of keeping on the right path were sometimes insuperable. Now, when the paths of research are beaten roads, it is a much easier matter; but all the wonderful discoveries which recent times have brought forth were then our own dreams, whose realization we surely and without doubt anticipated.

Here the manuscript ends, and it is to be hoped that more of it will yet be found.

Liebig's reference to Wöhler is very touching, and shows a side of his character which all his pupils knew well; they tell many genial stories illustrating his unselfishness and kindness of heart. One could have wished that he had not considered the stories “bordering on the fabulous,” of how he “found favor in the sight of Humboldt, Gay-Lussac, and Thenard, out of place here.” They would have been far from out of place. Mr. Muspratt supplies one of these stories as he heard it from Liebig's own lips, in the Munich Laboratory, as follows:

Liebig frequently spoke in most grateful terms of the kind manner in which he—a youth barely eighteen—was received by Gay-Lussac, Thenard, and other eminent chemists, in Paris.