THE SYNTHESIS OF LIVING BEINGS. 51 



form. There exist right crystals and left crystals similar to one 

 another as the right hand is to the left, but which can not be laid 

 over one another ; the direction of the deviation of polarized light 

 corresponds with the direction of the crystalline form. It must be 

 supposed that, after the solution of a right or left body, its sepa- 

 rated molecules are still dissj'inmetrical. Of like character are the 

 separate steps of a winding stairway ; their form tells whether the 

 stairs turned to the right or the left. Now, all superior organic 

 bodies — the albumens, the sugars, dextrin, and cellulose — are what 

 we call active bodies, endowed with the power of turning the 

 plane of polarized light to the right or the left ; and never by any 

 artifice of the laboratory has it been possible to prepare directly a 

 right body or a left body. In spite of the synthesis of alcohol 

 urea, and formic acid, we still have a right to say organic matter 

 is not fabricated outside of the living being. The work of life 

 can not be counterfeited. We can not artificially provoke the 

 formation of a cell ; we can no more reproduce the materials of 

 which it is made. The substances we have been able to reproduce 

 are only the waste of life returning toward inert matter, and 

 already nearly mineral." 



The analysis of these few pages can be summarized by saying 

 that the synthesis of all the products of life, without exception, 

 was long regarded as a contradiction to the laws of mineral matter 

 and as an impossibility. Yet chemistry has performed the syn- 

 thesis of some products of life — urea, formic acid, ethylic alcohol, 

 etc. But the authors of the challenge do not acknowledge them- 

 selves beaten; they have simply drawn back and circumscribed 

 the field of their defeat. " Yes," they say, " we acknowledge that 

 chemistry has been able to perform the synthesis of some prod- 

 ucts of life ; but they are inferior products, refuse. It has still 

 been never able to prepare directly the superior products like 

 albumen and the sugars. We can not counterfeit the work of 

 life." 



The reader has been able to view and measure the motion of 

 retreat. We can, with a little kindliness, regard it as having 

 been performed in good order. But we can also, with entire im- 

 partiality, see in it the first steps of a backward march which will 

 end in a rout. We can indeed say that the rout has already be- 

 gun. In fact, the reputed impassable has just been partly passed, 

 and syntheses characterized as impossible have been in large part 

 realized. 



The synthesis of the most important of the series of sugars is 

 now an accomplished fact. The researches which have permitted 

 the realization of this immense advance in organic chemistry, and 

 which are the work of M. Fischer and his pupils, have led to a 

 discovery of great importance. In the series of sugars we met 



