538 Professor Franhland, 07i the Production of [May 28, 



On the whole, it. would seem better, wlien one is ignorant, to 

 say so, ami not to retard the progress of sound inquiry by inventing 

 hypotheses involving the assumption of structures wliich have no 

 existence, and of " forces " which, their laws being undetermined, 

 are merely verbal entities. 



[T. II. IL] 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, May 28. 



William Robert Grove, Esq. M.A. Q.C. F.R.S. Vice-President, 



in the Chair. 



Professor E. Frankland, F.R.S. F.C.S. 



LECTURER ON CHEMISTRY AT ST. BAKTHOLOMEW'a HOSPITAL. 



On the Production of Organic Bodies without the agency of 



Vitality. 



The earlier researches of chemists brought them into contact with 

 two classes of bodies, distinguished from each other by well-marked 

 and obvious peculiarities. One of them was met with in the inani- 

 mate or mineral kingdom, the various materials of which were 

 distinguished by their comparative stability or resistance to change, 

 and by the facility with which the greater number of them could 

 be artificially produced from the elementary bodies composing 

 them. The other class of bodies was found exclusively in the 

 animate portion of creation, or was directly derived from the pro- 

 ductions of the organs of plants and of animals : these compounds 

 were distinguished by their proneness to undergo change, and by 

 the impossibility of producing them by artificial means. By no 

 processes then known to chemists, could the elements composing 

 these latter bodies be made to unite, so as to produce compounds, 

 either identical with, or analogous to, the substances generated by 

 the organs of plants and of animals. These substances were con- 

 sequently, from their origin, termed organic bodies or organic 

 comj)Ounds. They were regarded as dependent for their origin, 

 upon the influence of that aggregate of conditions sometimes called 

 vital force; and it was generally believed, that we should never 

 succeed in producing these bodies artificially, until we could form, 

 and endow with vitality, the organs from which they were derived. 

 Such was the state of knowledge and opinion until the year 

 1828, when Wohler succeeded in artificially producing urea^ a body 



