"As a savant and thinker Wurtz had not, in minutely specialised research, lost the faculty of viewing things as a whole; the great discoveries he had seen streaming out of his retort did not bring him to believe that everything could be explained by chemical or physical changes, and that there is no reality other than that which impinges on our

senses.

"The alliance of science and religion which is so often treated as a chimera he knew by personal experience to be possible; he had seen it realised in many eminent fellowworkers, and he appreciated it both for religion, which it renders more human, and for science, to which it gives wings and an impulse towards the ideal." 2

Wurtz himself had publicly declared his views concerning the relation of science to religious belief. At the meeting of French Scientists held at Lyons in 1874, he delivered the opening speech on the atomic structure of the universe. The last words contain a confession of faith.

"Such is the order of nature; and as science more and more penetrates it, we come to appreciate at once the simplicity of the means employed, and the infinite diversity of the results. Thus beneath the corner of the veil, which it permits us to raise, we catch a hint of the profound harmony of the plan of the world. As to first causes they remain inaccessible. They lie in a sphere which is not that of science, but which the human mind will always be eager to enter and explore. For so the human mind is made, and

1 Bulletin de la Société chimique de Paris XLIII, Paris 1885, LXXI. 2 L'alliance de la science et de la religion qu'on traite souvent de chimère, il la savait possible par son expérience personnelle, il l'avait vue réalisée chez bien des hommes éminents, et il en sentait tout le prix, à la fois pour la religion qu'elle rend plus humaine, et pour la science à laquelle elle donne des ailes pour s'élever vers l'idéal (Ib. xxv. Quoted in the Revue des quest. scient. L, Louvain 1901, 94).

you will not succeed in altering it. In vain will science expound the structure of the world, and the order of phenomena; the mind aspires higher, and in its instinctive belief that things do not contain in themselves their origin, continuance, and purpose, is led to subordinate them to a First Cause, a unique and universal cause, God." 1

Charles Friedel (1832-1899), from 1876 Professor at the Sorbonne, whose account of his teacher and countryman Wurtz we have just quoted, was himself "a man of much eminence in chemistry" 2. Friedel was a loyal Protestant. The Louvain chemist, Louis Henry, who, as he tells us, enjoyed his friendship for forty years, says that Wurtz's declaration at Lyons in 1874 represented Friedel's philosophy also 3.

1 Tel est l'ordre de la nature, et à mesure que la science y pénètre davantage, elle met à jour, en même temps que la simplicité des moyens mis en œuvre, la diversité infinie des résultats. Ainsi, à travers ce coin du voile qu'elle nous permet de soulever, elle nous laisse entrevoir tout ensemble l'harmonie et la profondeur du plan de l'univers. Quant aux causes premières, elles demeurent inaccessibles. Là commence un autre domaine que l'esprit humain sera toujours empressé d'aborder et de parcourir. Il est ainsi fait, et vous ne le changerez pas. C'est en vain que la science lui aura révélé la structure du monde et l'ordre de tous les phénomènes : il veut remonter plus haut, et dans la conviction instinctive que les choses n'ont pas en elles-mêmes leur raison d'être, leur support et leur origine, il est conduit à les subordonner à une cause première, unique, universelle, Dieu (quoted by M. Sepet in Revue des quest. hist. XVI 2, Paris 1874, 602; by L. Henry in the Académie R. de Belgique, Bulletin de la classe des sciences 1899, Bruxelles 1899, 336).

2 Thus the obituary notice in the Zentralblatt für Mineralogie, Geologie und Paläontologie, Jahrgang 1900, Stuttgart 1900, 53.

3 L. Henry, Notice sur Charles Friedel, ante. After quoting the words p. 214, ed. 2, selected from Wurtz's discourse, Henry p. 336, says: J'ose affirmer que cette philosophie si fortement et si

Louis Henry himself, who celebrated his jubilee at Louvain in 1900, declared himself a "Christian who knew how to rise above nature and render honour to the Author of nature" 1.

“A man of a profoundly religious disposition" is also the account given of Karl Remigius Fresenius who died in 1897 2. "And this did not abandon him in his days of trial", we read, "but kept him constant and loyal to his faith." 113 Although his religious enthusiasm may seem to Catholics in some respects misdirected he was a member of the Protestant Union and leader of the Church Liberals in Nassau it shows at all events how little atheism and materialism can appeal to the authority of the most famous of the younger chemists of Germany. For Fresenius was a master; his hand-book of quantitative analysis ran to sixteen editions in Germany, and was translated into every European language and into Chinese.

We may add yet another name here, that of Henri Sainte-Claire Deville. He began his career with Organic Chemistry and contributed to the discovery of aniline dyes, but his chief work was done in Inorganic Chemistry. His labours were of great practical fruitfulness.

éloquemment exprimée était celle que professait Friedel lui-même. Cf. Revue des quest. scient. L, Louvain 1901, 95: Le double charactère d'éminent chimiste et de chrétien sincère se retrouve dans Friedel comme dans Wurtz son maître.

1 Revue des quest. scient. XLVIII, Louvain 1900, 223.

2 Bericht der Deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, XXX. Jahrg., Bd. II, Berlin 1897, 1355.

3 Allgemeine deutsche Biographie XLVIII, Leipzig 1904, 742.

4 Jules Gay, Henri Sainte-Claire Deville. Sa vie et ses travaux, Paris 1889 (Reprinted separately from Cosmos 1886). D. Gernez, Notice sur Henri Sainte-Claire Deville, in Annales scientifiques de l'École normale supérieure, 3o série, XI, Paris 1894, Supplément 1-70. Tison, Henri Sainte-Claire Deville et son œuvre scientifique, in Revue du monde catholique LXIII 488-503.

"If aluminium is to-day an industrial product, this is due to the French chemist Henri Sainte-Claire Deville (1818 to 1881), who has left a name famous in nearly every department of Chemistry and Metallurgy" 1. Of his other works e. g. those on boron, silicon, the density of gases at very high temperature- we have space here to mention only his discovery of what is called the dissociation by heat of chemical combinations, "one of the greatest conquests not only of Chemistry but also of Philosophy, regarded as an interpretation of nature" (Dumas). This discovery enables us to understand the constancy of the sun's heat, and affords the first explanation of the noteworthy fact that in spite of the innumerable chimneys that send up their smoke into the air, there is no increase of carbonic acid gas in the latter.

Like his brother Charles, the geologist, Henri SainteClaire Deville "remained faithful all his life to the religion of his boyhood, and died in its bosom" 2. Many

1 F. X. Rüf in Stimmen aus Maria - Laach XLIV, Freiburg 1893, 51 ff.

2 Cet éminent chimiste qui est resté toute sa vie fidèle à la religion qu'il avait appris à aimer dans son enfance, et dans le sein de laquelle il a voulu mourir (Tison ante 489). Plusieurs jours avant sa mort il demanda lui-même les secours de la religion (ib. 503).

Of the brothers Charles and Henry Deville, J. Gay (ante 21) says: Unis dans la vie, ils le furent dans la mort. Ils la virent venir sans défaillance, et, après avoir appelé eux-mêmes le prêtre à leur chevet, ils firent leurs adieux à leur famille; ils laissaient à ceux qui les avaient aimés, avec le souvenir d'une vie sans défaillance, la suprême consolation, la seule efficace en une pareille douleur, d'une fin chrétienne, et l'espérance d'un revoir dans une autre région. Ib. Les frères Sainte-Claire Deville appartenaient par eux-mêmes et par leurs alliances à ces vieilles familles françaises et catholiques, ... où les croyances les plus nobles et les plus élevées s'allient tout

years before his death he had expressed a desire that his funeral discourse might be pronounced by his friend Louis Pasteur. It is said that the expression was used in a bantering way to cheer up Pasteur who was at the time very ill. But however this be there is no doubt, says a biographer of Pasteur, "that he felt that nobody else could understand him so well. Both alike pursued science with a passionate love; both alike were ardent patriots. And they were at one also in their confidence in the future evolution of the human spirit, and in the religious system from which they learned the secrets of eternity" 1.

VI. GEOGRAPHY.

The recognised founder of General Comparative Geography was Karl Ritter (born at Quedlinburg in 1779, appointed Professor at Berlin 1820, died 1859). It was the labours of Ritter, and the application of his methods that raised Geography to the status of a science.

Johannes Janssen 2 has given us a masterly picture of the life and character of Ritter, in which we find a clear statement of the great savant's attitude towards religion. "It is a matter for rejoicing that Ritter, unlike Alexander von Humboldt, never either in his life or in his writings paid homage to the sceptical idols of his day, but was always a resolute upholder of the Christian Revelation. Steadfast in his faith in the living God, and in His incarnate Son, our Redeemer, he is a

naturellement à une fière indépendance et à un ardent amour du travail.

1 R. Vallery-Radot, La vie de Pasteur, Paris 1901, 462. 2 Zeit- und Lebensbilder I4, Freiburg 1889, 113-179.