But this conception of chemistry is yet far from having been accepted by the world at large. This was brought forcibly to my attention during the publication of these chapters in "The Independent" by various letters, raising such objections as the following: When you say in your article on "What Comes from Coal Tar" that "Art can go ahead of nature in the dyestuff business" you have doubtless for the moment allowed your enthusiasm to sweep you away from the moorings of reason. Shakespeare, anticipating you and your "Creative Chemistry," has shown the utter untenableness of your position: Nature is made better by no mean, But nature makes that mean: so o'er that art, Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art That nature makes. How can you say that art surpasses nature when you know very well that nothing man is able to make can in any way equal the perfection of all nature's products? It is blasphemous of you to claim that man can improve the works of God as they appear in nature. Only the Creator can create. Man only imitates, destroys or defiles God's handiwork. No, it was not in momentary absence of mind that I claimed that man could improve upon nature in the making of dyes. I not only said it, but I proved it. I not only proved it, but I can back it up. I will give a million dollars to anybody finding in nature dyestuffs as numerous, varied, brilliant, pure and cheap as those that are manufactured in the laboratory. I haven't that amount of money with me at the moment, but the dyers would be glad to put it up for the discovery of a satisfactory natural source for their tinctorial materials. This is not an opinion of mine but a matter of fact, not to be decided by Shakespeare, who was not acquainted with the aniline products. Shakespeare in the passage quoted is indulging in his favorite amusement of a play upon words. There is a possible and a proper sense of the word "nature" that makes it include everything except the supernatural. Therefore man and all his works belong to the realm of nature. A tenement house in this sense is as "natural" as a bird's nest, a peapod or a crystal. But such a wide extension of the term destroys its distinctive value. It is more convenient and quite as correct to use "nature" as I have used it, in contradistinction to "art," meaning by the former the products of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, excluding the designs, inventions and constructions of man which we call "art."