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incontestable, while dualism the other is always more or less obscure
and dubious. The one is, in fact, the simple appreciation of an analytical
or synthetical fact: the second has always a certain hypothetical charac-
ter, since we then pronounce upon the mode of agglomeration of el-
ementary particles; which is a thing radically inaccessible to us. Thus,
for example, a chemist may establish with certainty that such or such a
salt is a compound of the second order, and that certain acids and alka-
lies are, on the contrary, of the first order; for analysis and synthesis can
demonstrate that each of the last bodies is composed of two elementary
substances, and that, on the contrary, the immediate principles of the
salt are decomposable into two elements. But, in another view, when the
analysis of any substance has established the existence is it of three or
four elements, as in the case of vegetable or animal matters, we cannot,
without resort to hypothesis pronounce that this combination is really
ternary or quaternary, instead of being simply binary: for we call never
assert that we could not, by a preliminary analysis less violent than this
final one, resolve the proposed substance into two immediate principles
of the first order, each of which should be further susceptible of a new
binary decomposition.
If an unskilled chemist should at this day apply unduly strong means
to the analysis of saltpetre, the results might authorize him, following
our present erroneous procedure to conceive of this substance as a ter-
nary combination of oxygen, azote, and potassium: and vet we know
that such a conclusion would be false, as the substance may be easily
reconstructed by a direct combination between nitric acid and potash,
which might have been separated by a less disturbing analysis, without
occasioning their decomposition. How do we know that it may not be so
with every combination habitually classed as ternary or quaternary?
Immediate analysis being as yet so imperfect in comparison with el-
ementary analysis, especially with regard to theses substances, would it
be rational to proclaim, for the time to come, its necessary and eternal
impotence with regard to them? Such judgments seem to be founded on
a confusion between these two kinds of analysis, so really different in
themselves, and so characterized in their operations by delicacy in the
one case and energy in the other. One important consideration, relat-
304/Auguste Comte
ing to the synthetical point of view, is evidence of this confusion be-
tween the two analyses: and that is, the extreme difficulty, if not impos-
sibility, of verifying by synthesis the analytical results proper to these
substances. We have seen that immediate synthesis is usually very easy,
while elementary synthesis is scarcely practicable. Thus, reciprocally, it
seems to me rational to suppose that when the recomposition cannot be
effected, the analysis has not been immediate, there being no other
objection to such a conclusion. For example, we exhibit the impossibil-
ity of reproducing by synthesis vegetable and animal substances: and
this has been even set up as a sort of empirical principle. But is not this
impossibility owing to our persisting in an elementary synthesis when
we ought to proceed by an immediate synthesis, the materials of which
might in many cases be discovered beforehand? This remark is true
with regard to a multitude of combinations the dualism of which is,
however, very certain, with the sole difference that the immediate prin-
ciples are better known. If we tried to recompose saltpetre by directly
combining oxygen azote, and potassium, we should succeed no better
than in reproducing organic substances by throwing together their three
or four elements: the obstacles which we admit in the last case apply
equally to the first. The most striking achievement is that of M. Woehler,
in producing the animal substance urea. He could not have done this if
he had tried, according to the common prejudice, to combine directly
oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and azote, which concur in the elementary
constitution of this substance, instead of uniting only its two immediate
principles, till then un known in this quality. Is there any reason to sup-
pose that it is otherwise in any other case? It appears then that chem-
ists will be safe in attributing an entire gene rarity to the fundamental
principle of the dualism of all combinations, under the one easy condi-
tion of regarding as still very imperfect the analysis of substances ex-
ceeding the binary composition; and especially the substances called
organic, the true immediate principles of which would thus remain to be
discovered. These principles can be conceived of only by imagining a
considerable number of new binary combinations, of the first and sec-
ond orders, between oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and azote: and the real-
ization of this may seem, in the present state of our knowledge, almost
impossible. But we have no right to conclude it to be so, while our
analytical procedures are what they are; and there is no scientific objec-
tion to our supposing that there may be many more direct and binary
combinations among the elements of ternary or quaternary substances
Positive Philosophy/305
than chemistry has yet established.
It must be observed, however, that universal and indefinite dualism
cannot be maintained unless chemists will scientifically determine the
sense of the word substance; that is, restrict it to mean real combination
for it would be easy to cite, and especially in physiological chemistry,
very marked cases of the defect of dualism. But we cannot regard as a
true chemical substance an accidental assemblage of heterogeneous sub-
stances, whose agglomeration is evidently mechanical, such as sap, blood,
a biliary calculus, etc., unless we confound the notion of dissolution,
and even of mixture, with that of combination. If we extend in this way
the use of the term substance, so valuable in chemistry, we might as
well treat, as so many ehemica1 substances, the waters of different seas,
different mineral waters, soils, etc.: and even more. artificial mixtures
of a variety of salts dissolved together in water or alcohol. We shall see
hereafter that all difficulties in this subject may be disposed of by our
learning that they proeeed from our not having clearly and rigorously
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