224 M. Berzelius 07i a New Power which acts in 



causes of these phenomena existed, than the power of this affi- 

 nity itself, along with heat, and, in some circumstances, light. 

 At that date the influence of electricity was detected ; and short- 

 ly afterwards we were led to confound the electrical agency over 

 bodies with the chemical, and to consider affinity as nothing 

 more than the manifestations of opposite electricities, heightened 

 by light and heat. But still, even this system supplied no other 

 means of explaining the origin of new compounds than the sup- 

 position that, by the approximation of bodies thus put into con- 

 tact, the electrical influence succeeded in more completely neu- 

 tralizing them. 



Starting with these views, which are deduced from the effects 

 which occur in unorganised bodies, and then studying the che- 

 mical actions which organised bodies present, we observe that 

 in the organs of these latter the most different kinds of products 

 are elaborated, notwithstanding that the matter whence they all 

 proceed consists in general only of one identical liquid, circulat- 

 ing in the vessels with more or less velocity. The vessels of 

 the animal body, for example, without interruption, receive 

 blood from the heart, and, nevertheless, at their extremities se- 

 crete milk, bile, &c. without the admission of any other liquid 

 which is capable, in the way of double affinity, of affecting any 

 decomposition whatever. There is clearly here a fact, of which 

 the science of unorganised matter can give no explanation. 



At this epoch M. Kirckhoff, discovered that starch, dissolved 

 in a diluted acid, is transformed, at a certain temperature, first 

 into gum, and then into sugar. It was then inquired, accord- 

 ing to the prevailing views with respect to effects of this kind, 

 what that substance was which the acid had taken from the starch 

 in reducing it into sugar ; but it was found that no gas had 

 escaped, as the acid reappeared, by means of alkalies, in its ori- 

 ginal quantity ; that no new combination had been formed ; and 

 that the liquid contained nothing else than sugar, in quantity 

 equal, and even superior, to the quantity of the starch employ- 

 ed. The cause, then, of this change was as problematical as 

 that of the secretions in organised bodies. 



M. Thenard soon afterwards discovered the peroxide of hy- 

 drogen, a liquid whose elements are very feebly retained toge- 

 ther. Upon this substance acids produce no change ; but alka- 



