A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



and for a long time thereafter, it was supposed that 

 substances of organic nature had some properties that 

 kept them aloof from the domain of inorganic chem- 

 istry. It was little doubted that a so-called "vital 

 force" operated here, replacing or modifying the action 

 of ordinary "chemical affinity." It was, indeed, ad- 

 mitted that organic compounds are composed of fa- 

 miliar elements chiefly carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, 

 and nitrogen ; but these elements were supposed to be 

 united in ways that could not be imitated in the do- 

 main of the non-living. It was regarded almost as an 

 axiom of chemistry that no organic compound what- 

 ever could be put together from its elements syn- 

 thesized in the laboratory. To effect the synthesis 

 of even the simplest organic compound, 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, Friedrich 

 Wohler, formerly pupil of Berzelius, and already known 

 as a coming master, had actually synthesized the well- 

 known organic product urea in his laboratory at Sac- 

 row. The " exception which proves the rule" is some- 

 thing never heard of in the domain of logical science. 

 Natural 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 

 chemist would regard the plant and animal organisms 

 as chemical laboratories in which conditions are pecul- 

 iarly favorable for building up complex compounds of 



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