304 CHEMICAL TRANSFORMATIONS 



acid, produce from it carbonic acid, acetic acid, oxalic 

 acid, formic acid, and many other products which 

 have not yet been examined. 



If, from the facts here stated, we estimate the 

 power with which the elements of sugar are united 

 together, and judge of the force of their attraction 

 by the resistance which they offer to the action of 

 bodies brought into contact with them, we must 

 regard the atom of sugar as belonging to that class 

 of compound atoms, which exist only by the vis- 

 inerticB of their elements. Its elements seem merely 

 to retain passively the position and condition in 

 which they had been placed, for we do not observe 

 that they resist a change of this condition by their 

 own mutual attraction, as is the case with sulphate 

 of potash. 



Now it is only such combinations as sugar, com- 

 binations, therefore, which possess a very complex 

 molecule, which are capable of undergoing the de- 

 compositions named fermentation and putrefaction. 



We have seen that metals acquire a power, which 

 they do not of themselves possess, namely, that of 

 decomposing water and nitric acid, by simple con- 

 tact with other metals in the act of chemical combi- 

 nation. We have also seen, that peroxide of hydro- 

 gen and the persulphuret of the same element, in 

 the act of decomposition, cause other compounds of 

 a similar kind, but of which the elements are much 

 more strongly combined, to undergo the same de- 

 composition, although they exert no chemical affinity 

 or attraction for them or their constituents. The 

 cause which produces these phenomena will be also 

 recognised, by attentive observation, in those matters 

 which excite fermentation or putrefaction. All bod- 

 ies in the act of combination or decomposition have 

 the property of inducing those processes ; or, in 

 other words, of causing a disturbance of the statical 

 equilibrium in the attractions of the elements of 

 complex organic molecules, in consequence of which 



