ORGANIC AND INORGANIC MATTER. 3 



At the present day, the term "organic" has been widely 

 extended in its significance by the wonderful discoveries of 

 modem science ; and " Organic Chemistry," as it is still com- 

 monly called, embraces a much more extensive field of inves- 

 tigation than would be afforded merely by those substances 

 which are actually manufactured by living beings. In addi- 

 tion, namely, to substances like starch, sugar, fat, and other 

 bodies which are produced solely by the living organism, and 

 which cannot at present be artificially generated, we embrace 

 under the head of "Organic Chemistry" a vast number of 

 compounds which are not produced by living beings, but are 

 artificially manufactured by the chemist in the laboratory. 

 These compounds are derived by various chemical processes 

 from strictly organic substances, which are in reality the pro- 

 duct of vital action, and they might therefore be appropriately 

 called " secondary organic bodies." 



The link between the primary and secondary organic bodies 

 is afforded by substances such as urea, which is one of the most 

 characteristic of animal products, and which was for a long 

 time unknown except as resulting from animal life. It is now 

 known, however, as first showed by Wohler, that urea is in 

 chemical composition identical with cyanate of ammonia, a 

 substance which can be manufactured on any desired scale in 

 the laboratory. We may reasonably anticipate that the result 

 of more extensive chemical researches will be very largely to 

 increase the number of bodies which, at present recognised 

 exclusively as the products of vital action, will ultimately be 

 found capable of being artificially manufactured. 



It need hardly be added, that the term "^organic," as applied 

 to any substance, in no way relates to the presence or "absence 

 of life. The materials which compose the living body are, of 

 course, " organic " in the main, but they are equally so after 

 death has occurred at any rate for a certain time and some 

 of them continue to be so for an indefinite period after life has 

 departed. Sugar, for example, is an organic product ; but in 

 itself it is of course dead, and it retains its stability after the 

 organism which produced it has lost all vitality. 



The following are the more important characters which dis- 

 tinguish the various organic substances, whether directly pro- 

 duced by living beings, or secondarily formed by chemical 

 processes of different kinds : (i.) Inorganic bodies are com- 

 posed of a large number of elements ; and these elements are 

 either simple and uncombined, or they are associated into 

 simple compounds, which rarely consist of more than two or 



