CHEMISTR Y NOT CONSTR UCTIVE. 3 3 



science shall have gradually revealed to us little by little 

 the extent of that region which lies but just beyond the 

 territory that has been hitherto successfully explored ? 



If " the constructive power of chemical art " be " un- 

 limited" there can be no doubt of the chemist's ultimate 

 ability to reproduce "all animal and vegetable principles 

 whatsoever," but it is questionable if " constructive power," 

 can be correctly predicated of chemical art, and there is 

 certainly no reason' to conclude that the power of the 

 chemist is unlimited. One of the lowest, simplest things 

 in nature is the common yeast fungus. It forms a clear, 

 transparent matter, which chemists have termed "cellulose." 

 What substance yet produced in the laboratory by synthesis 

 approximates to this, the easily formed product of the 

 lowest, simplest plant ? But even if cellulose had been 

 formed, the chemist would not have advanced a step towards 

 the production of the living stuff by which the cellulose is 

 produced. This sort of boasting and confident assertion 

 concerning what may be done by chemists about to be, in 

 the time to come, is thoroughly useless, and far removed 

 from the spirit of true science ; but many authorities who 

 have written from the same point of view indulge in still 

 grander physical and chemical prophecies, while at the same 

 time they manifest a strange indisposition to discuss the 

 nature of the changes which occur in the elementary part of 

 any simple organism. 



It has been argued that because conia, alizarine, and a 

 number of other vegetable compounds have been formed 

 artificially in the laboratory of the chemist from non-living 

 matter, that in time starch, gum, cellulose, albumen, &c., 

 will also be produced synthetically; and that then will be 



