224 
Organic Synthesis and its Social Bearings. [April, 
water. Our food must consist of matter in certain organic 
combinations ; and though we can find the single ingredients 
of such combinations in minerals, in the air, and in water, 
we cannot assimilate them and make them part and parcel 
of our tissues. But this task, which is impossible for our 
bodily organs, plants effect with ease. They create nothing, 
but they put together the elements which they obtain from 
the dead matter around them, and form fruity, roots, leaves, 
&c., which we can eat, digest, assimilate, and be thereby 
nourished. The animals which serve us for food support 
themselves mainly upon plants, and do little more than 
concentrate the nutritious matter found therein, and render 
it perhaps more easily assimilated. Their part is therefore 
of secondary importance, and need not further engage our 
attention. 
Letusnowtake as one of the simplest cases ausetul plant— 
the sugar-cane— and enquire what is the service which it 
renders to mankind ? Simply this : it takes the three well- 
known and plentiful elements, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, 
and combines them together in such proportions and with 
such an arrangement of particles as to constitute sugar. 
Every cane, therefore, is a workshop in which sugar is pro- 
duced, and all that remains for man to effedt is to separate 
out the sugar, which in Nature exists dissolved in the juices 
of the plant, and preserve it in a state of purity ready for 
use. But let us now suppose that we could take these 
same three elements — carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen — as 
they exist in air and water, and combine them together in 
the right proportions, thus forming sugar by the synthesis — 
the putting together — of its ultimate materials. We should 
thus dispense with the soil required for the growth of the 
crop ; with the manure for its fertilisation ; with the labour 
needed for planting, tending, and reaping the canes ; with 
the plant and machinery used for the extraction of the sugar, 
and with the attending waste ; and lastly, but not least, 
with the time which now elapses from first planting the 
cane to the day when the sugar is ready for the market, and 
with the interest on the capital sunk. Add that the supply 
of sugar would be henceforth quite independent of hurri- 
canes, floods, plagues of rats and termites, and all the 
various contingencies, living or lifeless, which now from 
time to time blast the hopes of the planter. The conse- 
quence would surely be a benefit to all parties concerned, 
greater profit to the producer, and easier prices to the 
consumer. . 
Let us now suppose other articles of food generated in a 
