possibilities.




CREATIVE CHEMISTRY

La Chimie posséde cette faculté créatrice à un degré plus
éminent que les autres sciences, parce qu'elle pénètre plus
profondément et atteint jusqu'aux éléments naturels des êtres.

--_Berthelot_.




I

THREE PERIODS OF PROGRESS


The story of Robinson Crusoe is an allegory of human history. Man is a
castaway upon a desert planet, isolated from other inhabited worlds--if
there be any such--by millions of miles of untraversable space. He is
absolutely dependent upon his own exertions, for this world of his, as
Wells says, has no imports except meteorites and no exports of any kind.
Man has no wrecked ship from a former civilization to draw upon for
tools and weapons, but must utilize as best he may such raw materials as
he can find. In this conquest of nature by man there are three stages
distinguishable: