They do not spend their time abroad for recreation, but take delight in their laboratories.

They put their fingers among coals, into clay and filth, not into gold rings.

They are sooty and black, like smiths and miners, and do not pride themselves upon clean and beautiful faces." In these respects the chemist of to-day faithfully follows the practice of the alchemists who were his predecessors.

You can nose a chemist in a crowd by the smell of the laboratory which hangs about him; you can pick him out by the stains on his hands and clothes.

He also "takes delight in his laboratory"; he does not always "pride himself on a clean and beautiful face"; he "sweats whole days and nights by his furnace." Why does the chemist toil so eagerly?
Why did the alchemists so untiringly pursue their quest?
I think it is not unfair to say: the chemist experiments in order that he "may liken his imaginings to the facts which he observes"; the alchemist toiled that he might liken the facts which he observed to his imaginings.