The Science and Industry of the Year 2000 (1894)

The modern world that emerged at the end of the 19th century had associated with it a highly optimistic vision of the progress that science and technology were to bring to humanity. The discoveries of organic chemistry made the synthesis of new products possible (dyes, medicines etc.), electricity supplies in towns and cities were bringing lighting and the beginnings of a certain comfort (at the time of the Paris Universal Exposition in 1900, electricity was seen as an animating sprite: “la fée électricité”), the automobile was making its appearance, and the telegraph and telephone were about to provide means of very long-distance communication. In the decades preceding the First World War, the development of education and universities in France would be a major aim of the Third Republic, with the aim of both consolidating Republican authority and remedying France’s scientific backwardness by comparison with Germany.
This capacity of science and technology to promote human happiness was often a central theme at the Republican banquets so beloved of the Republic’s leading personalities. The chemist Marcelin Berthelot, an academic widely recognized for his scientific work and an influential figure who combined the roles of scientist and politician – roles which, a few short years later, Max Weber would show to be guided by contrasting ethical imperatives – was no exception to this tradition. In this address on the subject of the year 2000, which he delivered at the banquet of the French Employers’ Federation for the Chemical Industries in 1894, Berthelot engaged in a brief foresight exercise. He speaks of his faith in a future that was being fashioned by the discoveries of science – and, in particular, of chemistry – and by “the alliance between science and industry” (this is a theme that will be heard once again, in virtually the same tones, more than a century later) – an alliance which was largely realized in Germany at the time, as is often forgotten. This speech, as can be seen here, is a genuine programme for the future, couched in highly optimistic terms.