MATTER 29 



I make the above remarks because there are those 

 who seem to imagine that the chemist in the labora- 

 tory may imitate the great multitude of wonderful 

 and unknown processes which are carried on in the 

 living world, and that the laboratory, by the use of 

 inorganic materials, may supersede the organic world 

 in the manufacture of carbon compounds. 



A fundamental doctrine in chemistry is that matter 

 cannot be destroyed. The chemist relies on this as a 

 well-established fact. We know of no method by which 

 to destroy a single atom of matter. The chemist 

 may separate substances from each other, or he may 

 cause them to unite by bringing them together under 

 certain conditions; he may change substances from 

 the solid to the liquid and from the liquid to the 

 gaseous condition; he may render matter invisible, or 

 the reverse, but he cannot destroy it. 



The indestructibility of matter is shown not only by 

 experiment, but also by the fact that the mind of man 

 is totally unable to conceive that something may be- 

 come nothing. 



