Let us learn to dream, gentlemen; then we shall perhaps find the truth.
We define organic chemistry as the chemistry of carbon compounds.
The separate atoms of a molecule are not connected all with all, or all with one, but, on the contrary, each one is connected only with one or with a few neighbouring atoms, just as in a chain link is connected with link.
The question whether atoms exist or not... belongs rather to metaphysics. In chemistry we have only to decide whether the assumption of atoms is an hypothesis adapted to the explanation of chemical phenomena... whether a further development of the atomic hypothesis promises to advance our knowledge of the mechanism of chemical phenomena... I rather expect that we shall some day find, for what we now call atoms, a mathematico-mechanical explanation, which will render an account of atomic weight, of atomicity, and of numerous other properties of the so-called atoms.
Originally a pupil of Liebig, I became a pupil of Dumas, Gerhardt and Williamson: I no longer belonged to any school.
Carbon is, as may easily be shown and as I shall explain in greater detail later, tetrabasic or tetratomic, that is 1 atom of carbon = C = 12 is equivalent to 4 At.H.
