Liebig does not admit.
"We have," he says, "no reason for believing that one element is
convertible into another element" (p. 135). What do you know
about it? The reasons for believing in such a conversion can
very well exist and at the same time escape your attention; and
it is not certain that your intelligence in this respect has
risen to the level of your experience. But, admitting the
negative argument of M. Liebig, what follows? That, with about
fifty-six exceptions, irreducible as yet, all matter is in a
condition of perpetual metamorphosis. Now, it is a law of our
reason to suppose in Nature unity of substance as well as unity
of force and system; moreover, the series of chemical compounds
and simple substances themselves leads us irresistibly to this
conclusion. Why, then, refuse to follow to the end the road
opened by science, and to admit an hypothesis which is the
inevitable result of experience itself?
M. Liebig not only denies the transmutability of elements, but
rejects the spontaneous formation of germs.
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