338 LAUGEL'S PROBLEMS OF NATURE AND LIFE. 



their lines to the spectrum. Its relations to hydrogen 

 in the form of ammonia are among the most important 

 in the economy of nature; while the strange alloy 

 produced by the union of ammonia and mercury 

 affords suggestions which may fitly become the basis of 

 future research. Under the same view we would 

 notice the singular and exceptional relations of nitro- 

 gen to titanium and boron all these things concur- 

 ring to furnish motives as well as means for further 

 enquiry. 



In dwelling thus long on these parts of chemistry 

 we have little space left to speak of the synthetical 

 branch of the science ; though this too has been 

 greatly advanced of late years by the labours of 

 chemists both at home and abroad. The most inte- 

 resting discoveries here are those which bring the 

 chemistry of organic life into connexion with that of 

 the inorganic world. By processes successful in their 

 subtlety various products have come out from the 

 laboratory identical with those which were before 

 considered exclusively due to the functions of animal 

 or vegetable life. In regarding, however, these and 

 other kindred achievements, we must not view analysis 

 and synthesis as oppugnant or detached methods of 

 research. The processes by which atoms and mole- 

 cules are rent asunder from their compounds have 

 close relation to those by which they are restored to 

 the same, or to other combinations, often new and un- 

 foreseen. They mutually aid and abet each other, 

 illustrating in this that great law of continuity which 

 prevails throughout all nature. 



