DR. PROUT ON CHEMISTRY. 
451 
pies of them) this fluid enters into combination, perhaps cjuite as 
often as in the proportion 9, especially in the organic kingdom* 
Chemists have already a glimpse of this important fact when 
they speak of bodies uniting to others in the proportions of two, 
three, or more atoms, which, in fact, are nothing more nor less 
than different terms of a natural series, such as that above 
alluded to. 
This view throws much light on the composition of bodies in 
general, and at the same time obviates many of those absurdities 
and false conclusions to which chemists are too often led by ad¬ 
hering to a single term. Thus, in a natural group or family, as 
the saccharine group for example, by adhering to a single num¬ 
ber, as 9, for water, we should be led to fractions of atoms with¬ 
out end; but by considering the carbon as associated with dif¬ 
ferent proportions of water, in terms of the above series (as ex¬ 
periment indicates to be the case), all these absurdities are avoid¬ 
ed, and at the same time the existence of a beautiful law is indi¬ 
cated ; and, in connexion with this point, it may be further 
observed, that, in general, the more simple the relations between 
the elementary weights, the more fixed and definite the charac¬ 
ter of the resulting product, particularly if the absolute weights 
of the elements have likewise a simple relation. 
There is reason to believe that bodies, as they descend in the 
quantitative series, gradually lose their power of contributing to 
crystalline form, and acquire a merorganizing faculty*: this ap¬ 
pears, at least, to be strikingly the case with water (one of the 
most important and frequent of all the merorganizing principles), 
which, even within limits capable of being determined by experi¬ 
ment, often modifies crystallization very remarkably. 
From these observations, which might be much extended, it 
will appear that, before much can be certainly known respecting 
the real nature of organized beings, the subject of chemical phi¬ 
losophy must be better understood than it is at present, and the 
ultimate composition of bodies be much more accurately deter¬ 
mined. In conjunction, too, with the ultimate composition of 
bodies, the nature of the merorganizing bodies must be carefully 
studied. This is an entire new field of inquiry, and one of the 
utmost importance and curiosity, and will, I have no doubt, 
hereafter, throw no ordinary light on many of nature’s operations. 
We shall then, for example, know why the red particles of the 
blood are merorganized by iron; why sulphur predominates in 
birds, phosphorus in fishes, lime in the secretions of the alimen¬ 
tary canal; how magnesia or magnesium is connected with nerv- 
* partim: see the paper above alluded to, Phil. Trans. 1827, 
where this term is provisionally adopted and explained. 
