18 CHEMISTRY INDISPENSABLE 



The reason why chemistry succeeded here in at 

 once producing positive vouchers of its utility, lies 

 simply in the fact, that in researches of this kind it 

 has to do, not with living bodies in a perpetual state 

 of change, like plants and animals, but with inani- 

 mate substances, which are more readily susceptible 

 of chemical examination than the former. As long 

 as a plant or an animal lives, the chemical processes 

 are under the guardianship of a higher and a myste- 

 rious power, which is called the vUal energy^ and are 

 constrained by this to furnish the materials for the 

 construction of the animal or vegetable organism. 

 The vital energy is, so to speak, the architect which 

 plans the outline of the building, whilst the chemical 

 processes must see to the provision of the requisite 

 materials, and work them up in conformity with his 

 design. In inanimate bodies, on the contrary, this 

 guardianship no longer exists, and the chemical pro- 

 cesses have free and unimpeded course for their devel- 

 opment. The chemist can, it is true, evoke and imi- 

 tate the action of chemical forces, but not that of the 

 vital energy ; he will, therefore, in cases where chem- 

 ical power enjoys free sovereignty, attain more easily 

 and rapidly to positive results, than in others, where 

 the vital energy, over which he can exercise no sway, 

 comes directly into opposition with him. 



Finally, chemistry possesses an additional or de- 

 tective function, whereby it proves extremely useful 

 to every man, and therefore to the farmer, since it 

 discloses frauds and impostures^ to which, as is noto- 



