T H E 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



NOVEMBER 1841 



XLVIII. On the Chemical Statics of Organized Beings. 

 By M. Dumas. 



[The discourse of which the following is a translation, attracted, as we are 

 informed, much attention, on its delivery hy M. Dumas. It formed the 

 concluding Lecture of his course at the Ecole de Medecinc, and has just 

 been published. — Ed.] 



IFE, whose painful mysteries you are called upon to fa- 

 -*- i thom, exhibits among its phaenomena some which are ma- 

 nifestly connected with the forces that inanimate nature herself 

 brings into action, others which emanate from a more elevated 

 source, less within the reach of our boldest stretch of thought. 



It has not been my province to accompany you in looking 

 with an inquisitive eye into all that part of your studies under 

 which those»facts which appertain to the normal or irregular 

 exercise of the instincts of life arrange themselves. Still less 

 have we ever had to bring under our consideration those noble 

 faculties, by means of which the human intellect, mastering all 

 that surrounds it, breaking down all obstacles, bending all the 

 powers of nature to its wants, has step by step made conquest 

 of the earth, of the seas, of the whole globe ; — a vast domain, 

 which our recollections, our presentiments perhaps, so often 

 make us consider as too narrow a prison. To others more 

 fortunate belongs the care of initiating you in these important 

 studies, the privilege of unfolding to you these lofty themes; 

 our task, more humble, must be limited to the field of the phy- 

 sical phaenomena of life; and there are still some which have 

 not found a place in our lectures. 



It is specially, indeed, the functions of matter in the pro- 

 duction and growth of organized beings, the part which it 



Phil, Mag. & 3. Vol, 19, No, 125. Nov. 18*1. Z 



