249 
GARDENING AS A SCIENCE. 
No. XI. 
In concluding this series for the year 1843, it will not be irrelevant to inves- 
tigate a question of no little moment at the present time, and one which has very 
injuriously been rendered a subject of dispute. Our attention has been called to 
it by perusing the leading article of the Gardeners Chronicle of Oct. 21, wherein 
allusion has been made to what is termed " the inconsiderate attack made by 
Professor Liebig upon Vegetable Physiologists." 
Liebig is a chemist of the first class — his attack we shall shortly make known, 
previously remarking that he has been, perhaps, a little too zealous and too 
exclusive in advocating his noble science. But what cause of dispute can there 
exist between two sciences, each pre-eminent in its place, but utterly distinct in 
its bearing ? Vegetable Physiology treats of structure, the disposition, and func- 
tions of organs. Chemistry investigates products ; it is misapplied whenever it 
is made to interfere with the functions of vitality. 
We have lately been induced to pay attention to the causes of vegetable 
changes, and in so doing have had to appeal exclusively to chemistry and chemical 
agents ; or, in other words, to consider the operations of soils, decomposing 
vegetable matter, and metallic oxidizable bodies. But even in tliese inquiries, 
which are referred to pure chemistry, there exists a vast deal of misconception. 
Vitality (we know no term more appropriate) is co-existent with every pheno- 
menon of chemical attraction or repulsion ; because, in fact, electricity is revealed, 
or at least concerned, in every movement. If a drop of water be decomposed by 
the agency of iron filings, a volume of elementary fire, equivalent to a powerful 
flash of lightning, is extricated ; and, tliough it passes silently, it still is itself the 
disturbing power : if a portion of leaf-mould be decomposed, its elements are 
enabled to recombine in multifarious forms, some liquid, others gaseous, by the 
play of electric affinities. But, though this be true, chemistry, in our acceptation 
of the word, cannot be directed by human machinery so as to affect any of the 
phenomena of vital action : therefore we distinguish natural electricity from 
chemical energy, because the former is displayed in the functions and secretions of 
organic life, whereas the latter is exerted upon dead or effete matter, in order to 
resolve it into its elements. 
Now, if Liebig erred, it was in the implied suggestion that the processes of life 
were dependent upon chemical agency ; and herein his zeal might have overrun 
his discretion. But as to his attacks upon physiologists, let us see to what 
they amount : — 
"Physiologists," he observes (p. 33), "reject the aid of chemistry in their 
inquiry into the secrets of vitality, although it alone could guide them in the true 
path ; they reject chemistry, because in its pursuit of knowledge it destroys the 
VOL. X, CXIX. K K 
