SYNTHETIC CHEMISTRY 



matical formulae of Newton, they retired from 

 astronomy to preside, under a slightly altered garb, 

 at the chemistry of living matter. It is singular 

 how wide-spread was this obsession even among 

 the hardest heads. 



Lavoisier had been at some pains to show that 

 this interesting world is made up of a rather small 

 number of substances put together in a rather 

 simple way. He had a notion that water might 

 be broken up into simpler elements; he was rich, 

 and he spent a matter of fifty thousand livres to 

 prove it. A multitude of other familiar bodies 

 showed him their skeletons, or rather the pieces of 

 which their skeletons are made. He created the 

 science of analysis. A little while before the Ter- 

 ror struck off his splendid head, Lavoisier wrote : 



"Chemistry, in submitting to experiment the different 

 bodies of nature, has for its object the decomposition of 

 these bodies so that we may study separately the different 

 substances that thus enter into combination. . . . Chem- 

 istry, then, marches towards its end and its perfection in 

 dividing, subdividing, and re -subdividing still." 



These ideas were fecund, and by the time Ber- 

 thelot took up his work, some sixty or seventy 

 elements, or indivisible substances, had come to be 

 recognized. A few, of rare occurrence, have been 

 added since; but it is worthy of note that none 

 have been taken away. An immense amount of 



