Note 814 — Chapter V · (continued 2)

‘Organic substances, whether directly derived from the vegetable or animal kingdom, or produced by the subsequent modification of bodies which thus originate, are remarkable as a class for a degree of complexity of constitution far exceeding that observed in any of the compounds yet described.’ Fownes' Chemistry, 3rd edit., London, 1850, p. 353. I quote this, as the first authority at hand, for a doctrine which is universally admitted by chemists, and which is indubitably true, so far as our experiments have at present extended.