THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN CHEMISTRY 



For many years this view enjoyed almost undisputed 

 sway. It received what seemed strong contirmation 

 when Faraday showed the definite connection between 

 the amount of electricity employed and the amount of 

 decomposition produced in the so-called electrolyte. 

 But its claims were really much too comprehensive, as 

 subsequent discoveries proved. 



IV 



"When Berzelius first promulgated his binary theory 

 he was careful to restrict its unmodified application to 

 the compounds of the inorganic world. At that time, 

 and for a long time thereafter, it was supposed that sub- 

 stances of organic nature had some properties that kept 

 them aloof from the domain of inorganic chemistry. It 

 was little doubted that a so-called " vital force " oper- 

 ated here, replacing or modifying the action of ordinary 

 "chemical affinity." It was, indeed, admitted that or- 

 ganic compounds are composed of familiar elements 

 chiefly carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen but 

 these elements were supposed to be united in ways that 

 could not be imitated in the domain of the non-living. 

 It was regarded almost as an axiom of chemistry that 

 no organic compound whatever could be put together 

 from its elements synthesized in the laboratory. To 

 effect the synthesis of even the simplest organic com- 

 pound it was thought that the " vital force" must be in 

 operation. 



Therefore a veritable sensation was created in the 

 chemical world when, in the year 1828, it was an- 

 nounced that the young German chemist Fried rich 

 Wohler, formerly pupil of Berzelius, and already known 



265 



