Familiar letters on chemistry. Second series, The philosophical principles and general laws of the science / By Justus Liebig ... Edited by John Gardner.

  • Liebig, Justus, Freiherr von, 1803-1873.
Date:
1844
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Familiar letters on chemistry. Second series, The philosophical principles and general laws of the science / By Justus Liebig ... Edited by John Gardner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    143/244 (page 127)
    LETTER VIII. My ©ear Sir, In the preceding Letters I have endea- voured to explain to you the connection of the forces of gravity, heat and electricity, with the chemical force; and I have also pointed out the limits and peculiarities of the effects produced upon chemical affinities by the vital principle. After the extinction of the vital principle in organic atoms, they maintain their form and pro- perties,—the state into which they have been brought in living organisms,—only by reason of their inherent inertia. It is a great and compre- hensive law of matter that its particles possess no self-activity, no inherent power of originating motion, when at rest; motion must be imparted by some external cause; and, in like manner, motion once imparted to a body can only be arrested by external resistance. The constituents of vegetable and animal sub- stances having been formed under the guidance and power of the vital principle, it is this prin-