728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to life, tacitly accepted it. Chemical substances which arc produced 

 under the mysterious influence of life, in the dark, unfathomcd cav- 

 ities of living organisms, cannot be produced by the hand of the 

 mortal chemist. This was the conclusion which grew to be a dosfma. 

 and was used as a kind of ex ^yost facto argument in favor of certain 

 views in regard to the so-called " vital force." 



But its influence did not cease here. Having worked so bene- 

 ficially as an important link in a chain of retrograde logical sequences, 

 it was afterward made a starting-point for other lines of argument. 

 It was employed in religious and purely philosophical discussions, and 

 assisted in the establishment of subsequent illogical conclusions. 



As these discussions were taking place, the chemist quietly con- 

 tinued his strange dealings with the elements. Discovery followed 

 discovery, until the fact could no longer be doubted that the dogma 

 must fall. Its fall was, however, not the matter of a moment. It re- 

 ceived repeated blows before it gave up its existence. Its place 

 has been taken by an hypothetical statement founded upon a large 

 array of facts, viz. : every chemical body, no matter of how compli- 

 cated a structure, or what its nature may be, will probably, in good 

 time, be prepared artificially in the chemist's laboratory. And this 

 statement becomes more and more probable every day. Already a 

 large number of the compounds, the formation of which was formerly 

 supposed to be dependent upon the action of the vital force, have been 

 reproduced entirely independently of any suspicion of the action of 

 this force; and thousands of other analogous compounds which have 

 never been found in plant nor animal are now known to us. Let us 

 look briefly at some of the steps that were taken in this advance 

 of opinion. 



In the year 1828 Wohler made the first observation bearing direct- 

 ly upon this subject. A few years earlier he had discovered cyanic 

 acid, and he was now engaged in the thorough investigation of this 

 acid. He prepared its ammonium salt, and, on evaporating the aque- 

 ous solution of the salt, he noticed the formation of large, well-de- 

 veloped crystals that in every respect resembled urea. Urea was 

 well known, but had, up to that time, only been found among the 

 products formed in animal bodies. Its existence was, in accordance 

 with the then prevalent views, supposed to be due to the inexpli- 

 cable action of the vital force. A careful examination failed to dis- 

 close any points of difierence between the two bodies, and Wohler 

 was forced to the conclusion that at least one organic substance 

 could be prepared outside of the organism. 



But this by no means brought about a change of views. The 

 upholders of the old dogma immediately found relief which was ap- 

 parently satisfactory. Cyanogen compounds, of course including cy- 

 anic acid, had only been prepared from substances which had had 

 their origin in the organs of animals, and, although these original 



