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Now coal tar
is the scrap-heap of the vegetable kingdom. It contains a little of
almost everything that makes up trees. But you must not imagine that all
that comes out of coal tar is contained in it. There are only about a
dozen primary products extracted from coal tar, but from these the
chemist is able to build up hundreds of thousands of new substances.
This is true creative chemistry, for most of these compounds are not to
be found in plants and never existed before they were made in the
laboratory. It used to be thought that organic compounds, the products
of vegetable and animal life, could only be produced by organized
beings, that they were created out of inorganic matter by the magic
touch of some "vital principle." But since the chemist has learned how,
he finds it easier to make organic than inorganic substances and he is
confident that he can reproduce any compound that he can analyze. He
cannot only imitate the manufacturing processes of the plants and
animals, but he can often beat them at their own game.


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