Carbon Chemistry with Vital Phenomena. 347 



which it shall be our aim to expose we can only account for 

 by the influence of the specializing tendency preventing che- 

 mists generally from folloAving up the science in its wider 

 relations. 



It is certainly the ideal issue of organic chemistry to co-or- 

 dinate the multitudinous facts already and to be amassed con- 

 cerning the carbon compounds, with the genesis, changes, and 

 ultimate fate of the substances which go to build up the tissues 

 of living organisms. Beyond this, indeed, many chemists do 

 not hesitate to indulge in expectations as to the possible 

 achievements of synthesis, which know no limits short of the . 

 inconceivable. The special "vital force" of a previous age 

 they dismiss as an ancient cloke of ignorance long since dis- 

 carded, under the genial influence of the sun of knowledge, 

 even by those who most tenaciously opposed its sheltering 

 folds to the stormy blast of " unbelief ; " and thus by removing 

 the great barrier, the whole universe of matter and force is 

 opened out to the "conquering progress of man." In the 

 words of an authoritative modern text-book, "At the present 

 day the belief in a special vital force has ceased to encumber 

 scientific progress. We now know that the same laws of com- 

 bination regulate the formation of chemical compounds in 

 animate and inanimate nature"*. The authors of this mani- 

 festo, however, leave us in doubt as to whether they regard the 

 belief in question as itself obsolete, or, by being modified in 

 accordance with the invincible array of facts by which their 

 second dogma has been established, as brought within the 

 pale of natural truth, and thus to have become an aid, and not 

 an encumbrance, to scientific progress. The two propositions 

 are certainly not equivalent unless this latter interpretation be 

 allowed ; and as equivalence is evidently intended, we take it 

 that the authors, leaving the mystery of life to vindicate itself, 

 also intended this interpretation, and would allow the chemical 

 phenomena of life to be as special, say, as the phenomena of heat. 



But it is difficult to rest satisfied with the isolated and phy- 

 sical interpretation of the passage ; the generalizing tendency 

 of modern physical science impels us to give it a wider con- 

 sideration. Thus, to develop our parallel, we have long ceased 

 to regard heat as having any special objective existence ; and 

 although its phenomena are, in relation to our perceptions, 

 still sufficiently special to admit of classification apart, we no 

 longer allow the exigencies of science to impede our progress 

 towards a better understanding of the unity of nature, but 

 recognize in heat " a manifestation of energy as a mode of 

 molecular motion," a definition which is sufficiently exclusive 

 * Roscoe and Scliorlemnier, ' Treatise on Chemistry,' iii. p. 10. 

 2A2 



