XI 



PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE 379 



evidence we have there. To enable us to say that 

 we know anything about the experimental origin- 

 ation of organisation and life, the investigator 

 ought to be able to take inorganic matters, such 

 as carbonic acid, ammonia, water, and salines, in 

 any sort of inorganic combination, and be able to 

 build them up into protein matter, and then that 

 protein matter ought to begin to live in" an 

 organic form. That, nobody has done as yet, and 

 I suspect it will be a long while before anybody 

 does do it. But the thing is by no means so 

 impossible as it looks ; for the researches of modern 

 chemistry have shown us I won't say the road 

 towards it, but, if I may so say, they have shown 

 the finger-post pointing to the road that may lead 

 to it. 



It is not many years ago and you must recol- 

 lect that Organic Chemistry is a young science, 

 not above a couple of generations old, you must 

 not expect too much of it, it is not many years 

 ago since it was said to be perfectly impossible to 

 fabricate any organic compound ; that is to say, 

 any non-mineral compound which is to be found 

 in an organised being. It remained so for a very 

 long period ; but it is now a considerable number 

 of years since a distinguished foreign chemist con- 

 trived to fabricate urea, a substance of a very 

 complex character, which forms one of the waste 

 products of animal structures. And of late years 

 a number of other compounds, such as butyric 



