Not only science in all countries, but also German Social 
Democracy, mourn at the grave earthed in today at the Southern 
Municipal Cemetery in Manchester. The great chemist who lies 
there was a Communist before Lassalle appeared in Germany; far 
from making any secret of his convictions he was, until his death, 
an active and regular dues-paying member of the Socialist Party of 
Germany. 

Carl Schorlemmer was born on September 30, 1834 in Darm- 
stadt, attended gymnasium in his home town, and then studied 
chemistry in Giessen and Heidelberg. After completing his studies 
he moved in 1858 to England, where at that time more than one 
career opened up for talented chemists from the Liebig school. 
Most of his young colleagues plunged into industry, but he 
remained true to science, first becoming the assistant of Angus 
Smith, the private chemist, and then of Roscoe, who shortly before 
had been appointed professor of chemistry of the newly founded 
Owens College.?”’ In 1861, having previously been Roscoe’s assistant, 
he was engaged as an official laboratory assistant at Owens College. 

The sixties were the time of his remarkable chemical 
discoveries. Organic chemistry had finally reached the point at 
which it could develop, from a large number of isolated, more or 
less incomplete statements about the composition of organic 
substances, into a real science. Schorlemmer selected the simplest 
of these substances as his object of investigation, convinced that 
the foundation of the new science was to be laid here: substances 
originally consisting only of carbon and hydrogen which become 
the most manifold and most varied other substances when part of 

Carl Schorlemmer 305 

their hydrogen is replaced by other simple or complex substances; 
these are the paraffins, the best known of which are to be found 
in petroleum, and from which are derived alcohols, fatty acids, 
ether, etc. We owe our knowledge about these paraffins today 
mainly to Schorlemmer. He investigated the existing substances 
belonging to the paraffin series, separated each one from the 
others, and produced many of them for the first time in pure 
form; others, which should have existed theoretically but were not 
yet known in practice, he discovered and also produced. Thus he 
became one of the founders of the scientific organic chemistry of 
today. 

Apart from this speciality of his, however, he also devoted a 
great deal of attention to what is called theoretical chemistry, i.e. 
to the basic laws of this science, and the way it fits in with related 
sciences, that is to say physics and physiology. He was particularly 
capable in this field. He was probably the only important scientist 
of his time who did not disdain learning from Hegel, at that 
period despised by many, but esteemed by himself. And rightly so. 
Anybody who wants to achieve anything in the field of theoretical 
integrated science must regard natural phenomena not as invari- 
able magnitudes, as most do, but as variable and in a state of flux. 
And this may be most easily learned, even today, from Hegel. 

When I got to know Schorlemmer at the beginning of the 
sixties—within a short time Marx and I became _ intimately 
acquainted with him—he often visited me with a bruised and 
battered face. The paraffins are no playthings, these often still 
unknown bodies exploded in his hands all the time, and he thus 
acquired a number of honourable injuries. It was only due to his 
glasses that he did not lose his sight. 

At that time he was already a complete Communist, and all he 
had to learn from us were the economic grounds for a conviction 
he had gained long ago. Once he became familiar through us with 
the progress made by the workers’ movement in the various 
countries, he always followed these events with great interest; but 
in particular the movement in Germany, after it advanced beyond 
the first stage of pure Lassalleanism. After I moved to London at 
the end of 1870, the greater part of our lively correspondence was 
concerned with the sciences and party affairs. 

To that date Schorlemmer, despite his world-wide reputation, 
had remained in Manchester, a man of very modest status. This 
now changed. In 1871 he was proposed as a member of the Roya. 
Society, the English Academy of Sciences, and immediately elected, 
which does not often happen; in 1874 Owens College finally 

established a new professorship in organic chemistry, specially for 
him, and soon after the University of Glasgow made him an 
honorary doctor. But these public honours made absolutely no 
difference to him. He was the soul of modesty, since his modesty 
was based upon a correct assessment of his own worth. For this 
reason he regarded these honours as self-evident, and therefore 
immaterial. 

He regularly spent his holidays in London with Marx and 
myself, except for the time he spent in Germany. Four years ago 
he accompanied me on a “whirlwind trip” to America.’ But his 
health was undermined even then; in 1890 we were still able to 
travel to Norway and the North Cape, but in 1891 his health 
collapsed at the beginning of a joint journey we attempted,’” and 
after this he never came to London again. From February this 
year he was almost entirely confined to the house, and from May 
to his bed; on June 27 he succumbed to cancer of the lung. 

It was the lot even of this man of science to experience in 
person the effects of the Anti-Socialist Law.**° Six or seven years 
ago he travelled from Switzerland to Darmstadt. Around this time 
a trunk full of the Sozialdemokrat from Zurich had fallen into the 
hands of the police somewhere. Who could the smuggler be other 
than the Social Democratic professor? After all, in the eyes of the 
police a chemist is a scientifically trained smuggler. So there were 
raids on the homes of his mother and his brother; but the 
professor was in Hochst. Immediate telegrams: a domicilary search 
there too, in which something quite unexpected was found—an 
English passport. After the promulgation of the Anti-Socialist 
Law Schorlemmer had had himself naturalised in England. This 
English passport stopped the police in their tracks; they shied 
away from diplomatic complications with England. So the upshot 
was a big scandal in Darmstadt, which was worth at least 500 votes 
to us at the next election. 

In the name of the Party Executive I laid upon the grave of our 
true friend and comrade a wreath with a red streamer inscribed: 
““FROM THE EXECUTIVE OF THE Social-DEMocraTiIC Party oF GERMANY”. 

London, July 1, 1892 
Frederick Engels 

July 3, 1892 (supplement) paper 

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