of simple alimentary substances, &c. 375 
mixture of a minute portion of some foreign fixed body. 
There is no term at present employed which expresses this 
condition of bodies, and hence, to avoid circumlocution, I have 
provisionally adopted the term^ merorganixed, pars 
vel partim ) meaning to imply by it that bodies on passing into 
this state become partly, or to a certain extent, organized. 
Thus starch I consider as merorganixed sugar, the two sub¬ 
stances having, as we shall see presently, the same essential 
composition, but the starch differing from the sugar by con¬ 
taining minute portions of other matters, which we may 
presume, prevent its constituent particles from arranging them¬ 
selves in the crystalline form, and thus cause it to assume 
totally different sensible properties.-f 
* I am indebted to my friend Mr. Lunn for this term. 
f When this subject first occupied my attention many years ago, I was at a loss 
to form any notion of the modus operandi of these minute admixtures of foreign bodies, 
except the mechanical one mentioned in the text, viz. that they operated by being 
interposed, as it were, among the essential elements of bodies, and thus by weaken¬ 
ing or modifying their natural affinities. But the admirable Paper, published by 
Mr. Hekschel, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1824, “ On certain motions 
produced in fluid conductors when transmitting the electric current,” appeared to 
throw an entire new light on the subject. The facts brought forward in this Paper 
are of the most important kind, and seem to me to be evidently connected with a 
principle of a more general character, which when completely developed, will lead to 
the most unexpected results. “ That such minute proportions of extraneous matter,” 
says Mr. H. “ should be found capable of communicating sensible mechanical 
motions and properties of a definite character to the body they are mixed with, is 
perhaps one of the most extraordinary facts that has yet appeared in chemistry. ‘ 
When we see energies so intense exerted by the ordinary forms of matter, we may 
reasonably ask wbat evidence we have for the imponderability of any of the powerful 
agents to which so large a part of the activity of material bodies seem to belong? ’ 
Any substance may be supposed capable of performing the part of a meror- 
ganizing body; but, in a certain point of view, water appears to constitute the 
first and chief, at least in organized substances. 
