Passage From The Inorganic To The Organic
( Originally Published 1913 )
In what does the Organic statically differ from the In-organic ? Metaphysicians solve the problem in a facile way; facile, but futile ! They declare that Organic matter differs from Inorganic in being endowed with Vital Force or Vital Principle. This is like Molière's physician explaining that opium caused sleep because it had a soporific virtue ! It is saying, "vitality is due to a vital principle !" An explanation entirely satisfactory to the metaphysical mind'; less so to the positive mind.
Enough of metaphysicians ! Let us turn to the men of Science, and ascertain what answer they can give. Many have been satisfied with the explanation suggested by Berzelius, Fourcroy, De Blainville, Muller, and others, —viz. that Inorganic bodies are formed by binary combinations, Organic by ternary or quaternary combinations.
" In mineral substances," says Muller, " the elements are always combined in a binary manner ; thus two elementary substances unite together, and this binary compound unites again with another simple substance, or with another binary compound.
In minerals the elementary substances are never observed to combine three or four together, so as to form a compound in which each element is equally united with all the others. This, however, is universally the case in organic bodies. Oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen, the same elements which by binary combination formed inorganic substances, unite together, each with all the others, and form the peculiar proximate principles of organic beings. These compounds are termed ternary, or quaternary, according to the number of elements composing them.. Vegetable mucus, starch, and adipose matter, are ternary compounds of oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen : gum, albumen, fibrin, animal mucus, and resin, are quaternary compounds, their fourth ingredient being nitrogen. A doubt has recently been thrown upon this theory of the composition of organic substances, especially with respect to some particular products, such as alcohol ; but there is still great probability in its favour, and more particularly in reference to the higher organic compounds, such as albumen, fibrin, &c."
"I have quoted the whole passage from Muller because it succinctly expresses a very general conception; but the conception is, as Mulder energetically says, durchaus unchemisch " altogether unchemical." The discovery of radicals upsets the whole theory. Ether, for example, does not consist of C4H5O but of C4H5 + O,—that is to say, the four equivalents of Carbon, the five of Hydrogen, and the one of Oxygen, do not form a ternary compound, each combining with the other two ; but the Carbon and the Hydrogen combine together, forming a compound radical named Ethyl, and this afterwards combines with oxygen and forms Ether. The oxygen here introduced may be separated from the group, and sulphur, bromine, or chlorine substituted. Thus, whether we admit the theory of the existence of compound radicals, as most chemists hold it, or whether we side with those who question it,* the facts upon which the theory is built overthrow the old hypothesis of ternary combinations. Indeed, Chemical Philosophy is daily advancing more and more to a recognition of the necessary dualism of all chemical combinations.
This hypothesis of binary and ternary compounds adumbrates one portion of the truth, it points out that the combinations necessary for organic bodies are more complex than those for inorganic bodies ; or, as Mulder puts it, " if any distinction is allowable we must place it in the fact that compound radicals exist in the former, and simple radicals in the latter" The point on which chemists are agreed is one mentioned in the previous section (p. 135) viz. that organic substances differ from the inorganic in possessing higher multiples of equivalents, or in other words that the organic molecule is a greater multiple of forces than the inorganic molecule.
The first stage in our inquiry is attained. We arrive at one capital distinction between Organic 