omposition is so likewise. This immediate composition is not formed of proportions fixed, determinate, invariable, and de-fined, as in inorganic substances. The organic substance, without losing its distinctive characters of coagulation, &c., may possess a little more or a little less of the elements of water, for example. Elementary analyses do not always give one constant result, as they do in the reduction of inorganic substances ; showing that the composition is not definite.
It is because the composition of organic substances oscillates between certain limits (limits, it is true, not very distant) that we are unable to foretell with any absolute certainty what are the molecular acts of combination or of double decomposition which will occur in any given ease, as we can. with urea, for example. The instability which accompanies this complexity of composition prevents our being certain, after having combined any organic substance with an acid, of finding it precisely as it was before, when we remove the acid by means of a base ; as we can with urea and nitric acid. The composition being indeterminate, it is possible the substance may have lost some of its elements, or its immediate molecular composition may have been modified.
How much of this indeterminateness may be mere mixture, I do not pretend to say. The distinctive fact is all needed for my purpose. The differences resulting from different immediate composition may be seen in Albumen and Fibrine, two substances having exactly the same elementary composition, and yet two substances so different that no one could confound them. Yet by reagents, or by heat, we can change Albumen into a solid and Fibrine into a liquid, so that the two may be indistinguishable one from the other ; and this without altering their elementary composition. Indeed, to use the language of the chemist I have been following, " Ces éléments varient constamment de quantité entre certaines limites pour une même espèce anatomiquement identique, mais prise chez des individus différents, pour une substance dont pourtant tous les autres caractères sont les mêmes. C'est ce qui fait dire que leur composition chimique n'est pas définie, n'est pas déterminée, parceque leur analyse élémentaire ne donne pas un poids de ces différents éléments fixe et constamment le même, comme le sont les sulfates, l'urée, le sucre," &c. Moreover, the nerve-tissue contains phosphorus as a constituent, but the quantity of this phosphorus varies, and yet the tissue remains nerve-tissue whether the phosphorus be more or less ; or any other tissue may lose some of its water without losing its properties.
Gathering up these various threads into one formula, we may by it express the second Static Law of Organized Substances :
LAW II. The presence of higher multiples is accompanied by an indefinite composition in lieu of a definite composition, and by a characteristic immediate synthesis of the elements.
Before passing to the third and final stage, it will be useful to alter the ordinary classification of matter " Organic and Inorganic," for one which I propose, with great hopes of its being found suggestive, viz. :
Matter may be considered under three aspects: 1st. Non-organized; 2nd. Organizable, or partly organized;
3rd. Organized. For these three conditions I propose the names of Anorganic, Merorganic, and Teleorganic.
I. Anorganic matter is that usually termed inorganic —water, salts, minerals, &c.
II. Merorganic matter is matter in an intermediate state, wherein it either wants some addition, to become organized, or else (as in organic products) has lost some of the elements it had when organized. Thus, the blastema from which cells are formed is the highest condition of merorganic matter—it is just on the eve of becoming vital. So also the cells which have lost their vitality in the very fulfilment of their function are all merorganic.
III. Teleorganic matter is matter in that condition in which the cell, fully equipped, can, and does, perform its function.
From this classification it appears that the passage from the i