180 
ORGANIC AND INORGANIC KINGDOMS. 
allusion to the colonial monomania for numbers, without 
much regard to breed or quality. Why, it is thoroughly 
understood that, in general, all the best bred and finest cattle 
are chiefly subject to the attacks of this fatal malady. It is 
no great stretch of knowledge to tell us that it will die out, 
but what heaps of dead may be enumerated before disease 
itself dies, and what losses will be previously sustained. 
The Cumberland endemic is still active in some parts of 
New South Wales, and catarrh occasionally breaks out in 
others. The scourges of prickly burrs and thistles will in 
due course vanish from the soil; but at what amount are we 
to estimate the evils their presence inflicts on this or other 
countries while they exist ?—The ‘Argus? Melbourne , Oct. 
\7th , 1861. 
ON THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE ORGANIC AND 
INORGANIC KINGDOMS. 
The theory is gaining ground that, in both the kingdoms 
of nature, organic and inorganic, the forces in operation are 
the same. Some chemists, in fact, have ceased to draw any 
distinction between them. This arises from many of the 
organic compounds having been formed from inorganic 
elements; the first of these, and by which the barrier was 
broken down, being urea, the characteristic constituent of urine, 
artificially prepared by Wohler. Then came the theory of 
compound radicals, by which it is almost shown that there 
really exists no difference. Hofman has substantiated this 
by his investigation of ammonia compounds. Indeed it has 
been said that only mischief can arise from the distinction, 
especially if it should be supposed that organic chemistry can 
be studied independently of inorganic. 
In a lecture delivered during the past session at the Royal 
Institution, by W. S. Savory, F.R.S., he says: 
Chemistry draws no line of demarcation between the organized and in¬ 
organic kingdoms. All questions of composition are of degree only, not of 
kind. 
Life constitutes the grand distinction. The difference is infinitely greater 
between living and dead organic matter than between dead organic and in¬ 
organic substances. Without attempting to describe it, life may be dis¬ 
tinguished by its effects. In life, when reduced to its simplest terms, and 
separated from all those elaborate details which invest it in the more complex 
forms, there exists a definite relation between destruction and renewal, a 
regulated adjustment between waste and repair whereby the condition is 
maintained, notwithstanding constant change. 
Life is not a state of resistance. The proofs of this are clear and com¬ 
plete. Waste or destruction is a necessary, an inevitable condition of its 
