Carbon Chemistry with Vital Phenomena. 349 



Chemistry and biology occupy to one another an antithetic 

 relation as regards their subject-matter : the goal of the one 

 is the starting-point of the other; the protoplasm as yet undif- 

 ferentiated, to which the biologist complacently refers the 

 origin of life, is to the chemist a perfect microcosm, and its syn- 

 thesis perhaps the highest possible achievement of his science. 

 With regard to the supervening phenomenon of organization 

 — the entrance of life — there is also a distinction of attitude. 

 To the biologist it is axiomatic — beyond that, a fact without 

 the range of observation, and one of which we venture to say, 

 therefore, he can give no account. Now the chemist finds his 

 attention challenged, and his work of speculative investigation 

 begin, at an earlier point in the history of the planet, when 

 as yet life was impossible ; his speculations moreover have a 

 certain basis in observation and analogy; and having initiated 

 his career, why break off and affect to view with veiled eyes 

 a change merely in the disposition of the matter and force 

 already existent and active ? Why, further, should we attach 

 to the entrance of structural organization a mystic signifi- 

 cance, when not only are we familiar with the inverse change 

 from the organized to the amorphous condition, but find it in 

 many cases to involve no change in the inner subsensible 

 molecular structure, or at least no deeper change than can be 

 included within the province of isomerism? Cellulose, for 

 instance (in the form of cotton), is dissolved by the ammonio- 

 cupric reagent, and on adding excess of acid is reprecipitated, 

 and may be recovered without loss of weight ; the change 

 undergone cannot, therefore, be more than morphological. 

 Furthei , the amorphous cellulose behaves towards reagents so 

 similarly to the original, that the change in question appears 

 to have affected merely the external structure. Add to these 

 considerations many others of a similar character, which need 

 not be here specified, together with the numerous syntheses of 

 the products of life and growth which have been achieved in 

 the laboratory, and lastly the narrow range of physical con- 

 ditions under which life is possible, and we have a fair con- 

 ception of the intellectual position from which might emanate 

 the dogma, "we have ceased to believe in a special vital force." 

 We, speaking personally, see no more reason, in these teach- 

 ings of molecular philosophy, for ceasing to believe in life as 

 resulting from special agency, than for ceasing to recognize 

 the living individuality of our English language or constitu- 

 tion, and the agency of Englishmen in their establishment 

 and development, because they are originally a rearrangement 

 of materials and forces once the possession of now obsolete or 

 effete nationalities. We are not aware that in any philosophy, 



