G. GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY AND ZOOLOGY. 155 



plasm, then necessarily also must the physical and chemical 

 properties of every inorganic natural body be regarded as 

 the result of a peculiar force not bound up with its substance. 



" 8. The protoplasm of all plastids is, like all other albu- 

 minoid or protein bodies, composed of four inseparable ele- 

 ments carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, to which 

 often, though not always, a fifth element namely, sulphur 

 is 'added. 



" 9. The forms and vital properties of protoplasm are con- 

 ditioned by the peculiar manner in which carbon has com- 

 bined itself so as to form a highly developed compound with 

 the three or four other elements named. Compounds devoid 

 of carbon never exhibit those peculiar chemical and physical 

 properties which exclusively belong to only a part of the 

 compounds of carbon (the so-called ' organic compounds') ; 

 on this account modern chemistry has replaced the term ' or- 

 ganic compounds' by the more significant term ' carbon com- 

 pounds.' 



" 10. Carbon, then, is that element, that indivisible funda- 

 mental substance which, in virtue of its peculiar physical and 

 chemical properties, stamps the various carbon compounds 

 with their peculiar organic character ; and in chief fashions 

 this protoplasm, the 'matter of life' (Zebensstoff), so that it 

 becomes the material basis of all vital phenomena. 



"11. The peculiar properties which protoplasm and the 

 other component tissues and substances of the organism de- 

 rived secondarily from it exhibit, especially their viscid condi- 

 tion and aggregation, their continual change of matter (on the 

 one hand their facile decomposition, on the other their facile 

 power of assimilation), and their other 'vital properties,' are 

 therefore simply and entirely brought about by the peculiar 

 and complex manner in which carbon under certain condi- 

 tions can combine with the other elements. 



"12. The entire properties of the organism are therefore 

 ultimately conditioned with equal necessity by the physical 

 and chemical properties of carbon, as are the entire properties 

 of every salt and every inorganic compound conditioned by 

 the physical and chemical properties of its component ele- 

 ments." 12 A,18n,Marc7i 2, 348. 



