But the chemist in
dropping the al- has dropped the idea of secrecy and his names, though
equally appalling to the layman, are designed to reveal and not to
conceal.
From this brief explanation the reader who has not studied chemistry
will, I think, be able to get some idea of how these very intricate
compounds are built up step by step. A completed house is hard to
understand, but when we see the mason laying one brick on top of another
it does not seem so difficult, although if we tried to do it we should
not find it so easy as we think. Anyhow, let me give you a hint. If you
want to make a good impression on a chemist don't tell him that he
seems to you a sort of magician, master of a black art, and all that
nonsense. The chemist has been trying for three hundred years to live
down the reputation of being inspired of the devil and it makes him mad
to have his past thrown up at him in this fashion. If his tactless
admirers would stop saying "it is all a mystery and a miracle to me,
and I cannot understand it" and pay attention to what he is telling them
they would understand it and would find that it is no more of a mystery
or a miracle than anything else.
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