L. C. COOLET. 55- (2.5 1 



advance of purely chemical methods into the domain 

 hitherto assigned to the vital force, not a few have pro- 

 jected the hypothesis forward into regions which experi- 

 ment has not explored, and declare that the chemical 

 and physical forces of nature are competent to explain 

 the phenomena of life itself. 



Is the "death of vitalism" an accomplished fact? 

 The object of the following paper is to consider what 

 testimony modern chemistry brings to bear on this im- 

 portant question. 



In discussing this question we ought to remember in 

 the outset that physical science is not made up of hopes, 

 that its theories are not the expressions of expecta- 

 tions. It is. on the contrary, a record of actual achieve- 

 ments and of such hypotheses as logically spring from 

 them. This record is all that can be accepted in evidence 

 when important theories are on trial. 



Analysis and synthesis being the two distinctive meth- 

 ods of chemical research, let us briefly consider the bear 

 ing of each upon the question before us. 



CHEMICAL ANALYSIS. 



Ask the analyst what are the constituents of a com- 

 pound body and lie will doubtless point you to the vari- 

 ous products of its decomposition, and lie will call them 

 proximate or ultimate constituents, according to their 

 own compound or elementary character Hut mark the 

 difference between these. The so-called " proximate 

 constituents." that is to say the compound substances 

 derived from a mere complex body by an analysis may 

 be constituents of that body, or they may not be ; gener- 

 ally they are not. They are to be regarded as constituents 

 only when they exist ready formed in the body and may 

 be extracted by processes which do not produce chemical 

 changes. Salt is a constituent of sea water because it 

 exists as salt in the sea, and we know that it does exist 

 as salt in the sea because it may be obtained therefrom 

 by the simple process of evaporation, which has no 

 power to produce it. Likewise sugar is a constituent of 

 the maple and starch is a constituent of the potato. 



Hut far the larger number of the products of analysis 

 are not to be obtained except by means which change 

 the very nature of the substance analyzed by breaking 



