TO CHEMICAL RESEARCHES, IN REPLY TO M. CHEVREUL. 607 



thinks may be urged against the optical character derived from circular 

 polarization, I intended to follow him in his consideration of its utility ; 

 but this relating to our own views without affecting those of others, 

 the consideration of it would not be profitable to science. Those who 

 labour at the present day to connect by rational relations the innume- 

 rable transformations to which organic chemistry gives birth, will easily 

 feel that the specially molecular character of the power of optical ro- 

 tation assigns new conditions which must necessarily be satisfied, in 

 selecting the groups of atomic combinations which represent the com- 

 pound products. I thought that I should be rendering a service to 

 science by here giving a precise explanation of this character, of which 

 M. Chevreul's dissertation appeared to me to present involuntarily a very 

 inexact idea, which might retard its application. This duty accom- 

 plished, I leave it to the judgement of experimentalists. 



Paris, Dec. 14<A, 1834. 



