Therefore all life in the sea (as on land) depends on the power which the holophytic organisms possess of synthesizing mineral substances into organized tissues.
At this time there existed a belief, held at a later date by Berzelius, Gmelin and many others, that the formation of organic compounds was conditioned by a so-called vital force; and the difficulty of artificially realizing this action explained the supposed impossibility of synthesizing organic compounds.
With Kant, reason (Vernunft) is the power of synthesizing into unity, by means of comprehensive principles, the concepts provided by the intellect (Verstand).
In 1877, with Crafts, he made the first publication of the fruitful and widely used method for synthesizing benzene homologues now generally known as the "Friedel and Crafts reaction."
The subject was taken up by Emil Fischer, who succeeded in synthesizing glucose, and also several of its stereo-isomers, there being 16 according to the Le Bel-van't Hoff theory (see Stereo-Isomerism and Sugar).
