The researches of modern
chemistry prove the truth of this law in the larger part of natural
effects. Chemistry divides creation into two distinct parts,--organic
nature, and inorganic nature. Organic nature, comprising as it does
all animal and vegetable creations which show an organization more or
less perfect,--or, to be more exact, a greater or lesser motive power,
which gives more or less sensibility,--is, undoubtedly, the more
important part of our earth. Now, analysis has reduced all the
products of this nature to four simple substances, namely: three
gases, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, and another simple substance,
non-metallic and solid, carbon. Inorganic nature, on the contrary, so
simple, devoid of movement and sensation, denied the power of growth
(too hastily accorded to it by Linnaeus), possesses fifty-three simple
substances, or elements, whose different combinations make its
products. Is it probable that means should be more numerous where a
lesser number of results are produced?
"'My master's opinion was that these fifty-three primary bodies have
one originating principle, acted upon in the past by some force the
knowledge of which has perished to-day, but which human genius ought
to rediscover. Well, then, suppose that this force does live and act
again; we have chemical unity. Organic and inorganic nature would
apparently then rest on four essential principles,--in fact, if we
could decompose nitrogen which we ought to consider a negation, we
should have but three.
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