Thirty-Fourth Meeting

Dr. Steiner: A number of friends have conveyed that feeling to me. You certainly cannot deny that what you yourself are working upon will color your teaching. I believe that you will find the proper nuances if you present this material somewhat historically. I also believe that it would be good to begin the story where all the polemics about structural formulas, both pro and con, begin. Atomism was something different prior to Van’t Hoff ’s chemical symbols. I believe that you need to work through all Kolbe’s polemic against symbolic chemistry, since this polemicizing has, in a sense, placed the entire problem on developments in chemistry. You can show this precisely. You have all said a great deal against atomism, but you have not been able to say as much against it as Kolbe. You can put all this into perspective only when you include the most modern aspects. You need to include the phenomenalism introduced in the work of Pelikan and Kolisko. You would make no impression if you simply mentioned Kolbe’s name. Kolbe said that in order to continue in chemistry, Van’t Hoff mounted the Pegasus he apparently borrowed from the veterinary institute in Berlin. You need to include that.