54-(24 N ) CHEMISTRY A1S T D THE QUESTION OF LIFE. 



ctiemist's most powerful methods. The chemist was just 

 as absolutely ignorant of the mode in which the ele- 

 ments, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, are made to 

 produce alcohol, as he was of the mode in which the 

 various constituents are combined to produce the fruit 

 from whose juices the alcohol is distilled. It was there- 

 fore not yet time to make any chemical distinction 

 between the origin of organic compounds and the origin 

 of the organized body from which such compounds may 

 be extracted. There was entire ignorance of the syn- 

 thesis of both, and hence the synthesis of both was 

 attributed to vitality. 



But this conception has been supremely modified by 

 more recent results. No chemist now believes that the 

 elements of alcohol are affected by other than the same 

 chemical affinity which affects the elements of sulphuric 

 acid. On the contrary, it is believed that the compounds 

 which may be extracted from organized bodies are sub- 

 ject to the same forces and are obedient to the same laws 

 of combination which act upon and control the constitu- 

 ents of mineral matter. 



This belief is founded on the evidence of the labora- 

 tory. The first testimony was furnished by the experi- 

 ments of the German chemist, Woliler, who, in 1828, 

 succeeded in combining the constituents of urea and 

 making an artificial product identical with what had 

 hitherto been known only as an animal substance.* A 

 distinctively organic substance was thus manufactured 

 from inorganic matter by the processes of mineral chem- 

 istry. There was no room in Wohler's apparatus for 

 the action of a "vital force;" that chemist wrought in 

 accordance with the laws of chemical combination and 

 secured the conditions on which the chemical force 

 alone was able to build urea. 



Tn like manner hundreds of organic compounds have 

 since been made by artificial processes. Indeed these 

 chemical syntheses of organic compounds have gone so 

 far that the logic of induction compels us to infer that 

 there is no more room for the action of the vital force in 

 the chemistry of these compounds than there is in that 

 of the constituents of the rocks. 



But the early impetus of a new theory usually impels 

 it beyond the truth. Viewing the recent undoubted 



