Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/460

454 of a single charged atom can be detected by electrical means. Thus the electroscope is millions of millions of times as sensitive as the spectroscope, which is itself in many cases far more sensitive than the balance. This explains, in part, why radium was discovered by physicists, and why physicists have been most active in all the work which has had to do with the theories of electricity and matter. If chemists wish to compete with physicists in this field of investigation they must adopt physical methods and apparatus, or devise some which shall be far more sensitive than the balance or spectroscope. Further, some of the great chemists of the world need to awake to the fact that there is something doing and that they are not doing it. The conservatism and indifference of some of them are surprising. But a few months ago one of them expressed the following sentiments in a paper read before the Chemical Section of the British Association. ". . . those who feel that the electron is possibly [note the possibly] but a figment of the imagination will remain satisfied with a symbolic system which has served us so long and so well as a means of giving expression to facts which we do not pretend to explain. . . . Until the credentials of the electron are placed on a higher plane of practical politics, until they are placed on a practical plane, we may well rest content with our present condition and admit frankly that our knowledge is insufficient to enable us even to venture on an explanation of valency." Think of it! We, the chemists, "remain content," in this day when, as the Hon. A. J. Balfour has said, the attempt to unify physical science and nature "excites feelings of the most acute intellectual gratification. The satisfaction it gives is almost esthetic in its intensity and quality. We feel the same sort of pleasurable shock as when from the crest of some melancholy pass we first see far below the sudden glory of plain, river and mountain." "Best content!" No wonder the Nobel prize in chemistry was awarded to Rutherford, a physicist.

As to the second principle, the conservation of energy, some have had misgivings. It was Kelvin, I believe, who said that radium placed the first question mark after this great principle. Many have refused to believe in the electron and disintegration theories because they saw, or thought they saw, in these theories a contradiction of the principle of energy conservation. Personally I do not see that there are necessarily any contradictions. But even if there were and we were therefore justified in rejecting the theories proposed to explain the facts, we certainly should not be justified in rejecting the facts themselves.

In this connection I am reminded of the story of a lawyer whose client was placed in jail for some very trivial offence. When the lawyer learned the nature of the charge he said to his client: "My