THE STORY OF NINETEENTH -CENTURY SCIENCE 



as a coining master, had actually synthesized the well- 

 known organic product urea in his laboratory at Sacrow. 

 The "exception which proves the rule" is something 

 never heard of in the domain of logical science. Nat- 

 ural law knows no exceptions. So the synthesis of a 

 single organic compound sufficed at a blow to break 

 down the chemical barrier which the imagination of the 

 fathers of the science had erected between animate and 

 inanimate nature. Thenceforth the philosophical chem- 

 ist would regard the plant and animal organisms as 

 chemical laboratories in which conditions are peculiarly 

 favorable for building up complex compounds of a few 

 familiar elements, under the operation of universal 

 chemical laws. The chimera " vital force " could no 

 longer gain recognition in the domain of chemistry. 



Now a wave of interest in organic chemistry swept 

 over the chemical world, and soon the study of carbon 

 compounds became as much the fashion as electro-chem- 

 istry had been in the preceding generation. 



Foremost among the workers who rendered this epoch 

 of organic chemistry memorable were Justus Liebig in 

 Germany and Jean Baptiste Andre Dumas in France, 

 and their respective pupils, Charles Frederic Gerhardt 

 and Augustus Laurent. Wohler, too, must be named in 

 the same breath, as also must Louis Pasteur, who, 

 though somewhat younger than the others, came upon 

 the scene in time to take chief part in the most impor- 

 tant of the controversies that grew out of their labors. 



Several years earlier than this the way had been 

 paved for the study of organic substances by Gay-Lus- 

 sac's discovery, made in 1815, that a certain compound 

 of carbon and nitrogen, which he named cyanogen, has 

 a peculiar degree of stability which enables it to retain 



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