CAUSE OF VITAL AFFINITY. 525 



Now the great question that lies at the very 

 foundation of organic chemistry is, whether the 

 power of forming ternary and quaternary com- 

 pounds, with the aptitude for renewing their com- 

 position by assimilation and elimination, be owing 

 to the same cause which governs the affinities of 

 dead matter, or to some peculiar principle of a 

 totally distinct nature, as maintained by Berzelius, 

 Tiedmann, Muller, and nearly all the most dis- 

 tinguished physiologists of the present day ? 

 Nothing but an earnest appeal to nature, and 

 a careful examination of facts can resolve this 

 difficult problem. 



Thelearned Tiedmann observes very justly, that 

 the difficulty of explaining the phenomena of life 

 by the laws of physics, may be owing to our 

 imperfect knowledge of natural phenomena in 

 general. But Muller contends, that " the power 

 by which the elements of organized bodies are 

 united into ternary and quaternary compounds 

 in opposition to the laws of chemistry, is, 

 without doubt, a peculiar force, or imponderable 

 matter, unknown in inorganic nature." Yet he 

 admits in another place, that the cause of crys- 

 tallization is not more profoundly hidden than 

 that of organization. (Elements of Physiology, 

 pp. 22, 251.) That the power of oxygen, hy- 

 drogen, carbon, and nitrogen, to form the prox- 

 imate constituents of living bodies, is owing to 

 the fundamental properties of these elements, 



