12 THE VITAL FUNCTIONS. 



man art is adequate to effect their reunion in the same state 

 as that in which they had existed in those substances; for it 

 was by the 'refmcd operations of vitality, the only power 

 that could produce this adjustment, that they have been 

 brought into that condition. 



We may take as an example one of the simplest of orga- 

 nic products, namely, Sugar; a substance which has been 

 analyzed with the greatest accuracy by modern chemists: 

 yet to reproduce this sugar, by the artificial combination of 

 its simple elements, is a problem that has hitherto baffled all 

 the efforts of philosophy. Chemistry, notwithstanding the 

 proud rank it justly holds among the physical sciences, and 

 the noble discoveries with which it has enriched the arts; 

 notwithstanding it has unveiled to us many of the secret ope- 

 rations of nature, and placed in our hands some of her most 

 powerful instruments for acting upon matter; and notwith- 

 standing it is armed with full powers to destroy, cannot, in 

 any one organic product, rejoin that w^hich has been once 

 dissevered. Through the medium of chemistry we are ena- 

 bled, perhaps, to form some estimate of the value of what 

 we find executed by other agencies; but the imitation of 

 the model, even in the smallest part, is far beyond our power. 

 No means w^hich the laboratory can supply, no process, 

 which the most inventive chemist can devise, have ever yet 

 approached those delicate and refined operations which na- 

 ture silently conducts in the organized texture of living 

 plants and animals. 



The elements of organic substances are not very nume- 

 rous; the principal of them being oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, 

 nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphbrus, together with a few of 

 the alkaline, earthy, and metallic bases. These substances 

 are variously united, so as to form certain specific com- 

 pounds, wdiich, although they are susceptible, in different 

 instances, of endless modifications, yetf possess such a gene- 

 ral character of uniformity, as to allow of their being ar- 

 ranged in certain classes; the most characteristic substance 

 in each class constituting what is called a proximate orga- 



