106       MOLECULAR  DISSYMMETRY  OP  ORGANIC  PRODUCTS. 
if  natural  products,  organized  under  the  influence  of  vegetable 
life,  are  ordinarily  dissymmetric,  contrarily  to  what  mineral  and 
artificial  products  offer  us,  this  disposition  of  elementary  parti- 
cles is  not  a  condition  of  existence  of  the  molecule,  that  the 
twisted  organic  group  can  untwist  itself,  and  then  take  the  ge- 
neral character  of  artificial  or  mineral  substances.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  seems  to  me  logical  to  regard  the  latter  as  sus- 
ceptible of  presenting  a  dissymmetric  arrangement  of  their  atoms 
in  the  manner  of  natural  products.  The  conditions  of  their 
production  are  to  be  discovered. 
As  final  analysis  and  summing  up  of  what  precedes,  the  groups 
of  elementary  atoms  which  constitute  compound  matter  may 
cover  two  distinct  states,  corresponding  to  two  general  types  to 
which  every  material  object  may  be  referred.  The  form  of  the 
group  is  with  a  superposable  image,  or  with  a  non-superposable 
image  :  but  this  latter  type  is  double,  because  its  inverse  can 
exist  on  the  same  ground  as  itself.  We  must  add  the  case  of 
the  association  of  these  two  inverse  types,  which  recalls  the 
union  by  pairs  of  the  identical  and  non-superposable  members 
of  the  superior  animals.  So  that  there  is  in  reality  four  remark- 
able dispositions  for  the  groups  of  atoms  which  constitute  matter. 
All  our  efforts  should  tend  towards  producing  them  for  each 
particular  species. 
There  is  in  almost  all  these  considerations  such  exactitude, 
that  it  seems  impossible  to  call  them  in  question. 
How  refuse  to  admit  that  a  right  body  has  its  possible  left, 
knowing  as  we  know  the  signification  of  the  right  or  left  cha- 
racter ?  This  would  be  to  doubt  that  an  irregular  tetrahedron 
has  its  inverse,  that  a  dextrorse  helix  has  its  sinistrorse  inverse, 
that  a  right  hand  has  its  possible  left. 
And  hence,  if  the  mysterious  influence  to  which  the  dissym- 
metry of  natural  products  is  due  should  come  to  change  in  sense 
or  direction,  the  constituting  elements  of  all  living  beings  would 
take  an  inverse  dissymmetry.  Perhaps  a  new  world  would  be 
presented  to  us.  Who  could  foresee  the  organization  of  living 
beings,  if  the  cellulose,  which  is  right,  should  become  left,  if  the 
left  albumen  of  the  blood  should  become  right?  There  are 
here  mysteries  which  prepare  immense  labors  for  the  future, 
and  from  this  hour  invite  the  most  serious  meditations  of  science. 
