STUDIES ON FERMENTATION. 325 



conclusions deducible from it to a most unjustifiable extent. 

 They asserted that one and the same nitrogenous substance 

 might undergo various modifications in contact with air, so as 

 to become successively alcoholic, lactic, butyric, and other 

 ferments. There is nothing more convenient than purely 

 hypothetical theories, theories which are not the necessary con- 

 sequences of facts ; when fresh facts which cannot be reconciled 

 with the original hypothesis are discovered, new hypotheses 

 can be tacked on to the old ones. This is exactly what Liebig 

 and Fremy have done, each in his turn, under the pressure of 

 our studies, commenced in 1857. In 1864 Fremy devised the 

 theory of Jiemi-oygmiism, which meant nothing more than that 

 he gave up Liebig's theory of 1843, together with the additions 

 which Boutron and he had made to it in 1846 ; in other words, 

 he abandoned the idea of albuminous substances being ferments, 

 to take up another idea, that albuminous substances, in contact 

 with air, are peculiarly adapted to undergo organization into 

 new beings — that is, the living ferments which we had dis- 

 covered — and that the ferments of beer and of the gi-ape have 

 a common origin. 



This theory of hemi-organism was word for word the anti- 

 quated opinion of Turpin, as may be readily seen by referring 

 to Chapter lY., section III. of the present work. The public, 

 especially a certain section of the public, did not go very 

 deeply into an examination of the subject. It was the period 

 when the doctrine of spontaneous generation was being dis- 

 cussed with much warmth. The new word hemi-organism, 

 which was the only novelty in M. Fremy's theory, deceived 

 people. It was thought that M. Fremy had really discovered 

 the solution of the question of the day. It is true that it was 

 rather difiicult to understand the process by which an albumi- 

 nous substance could become all at once a living and budding- 

 cell. This difiiculty was readily solved by M. Fremy, who 

 declared that it was the result of some power that was not yet 

 understood, the power of " organic impulse."* 



* Fhemy, Comptes rendus de V Academie, vol. Iviii. p. 1065, 1864. 



