Berzelius: organic substances are formed by a vital force (Lebenskraft)
A chemical view in which the substances of living organisms are formed by a special 'vital force' (Lebenskraft) that cannot be reproduced in the laboratory. Chemistry itself is divided into inorganic and organic.
It was held by the Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius. The historian of chemistry Ramberg showed that in the Lehrbuch of 1837, nine years after Wöhler's urea experiment, Berzelius describes the Lebenskraft in detail and never once mentions the urea synthesis.
This is the key evidence that Berzelius himself did not regard Wöhler's experiment as a refutation of his concept.
Why this date
low: 1815 is taken provisionally as the middle of the 1810s (Lärbok i kemien); the documented formulation (Ramberg) belongs to the Lehrbuch of 1837, and earlier formulations in the Lärbok i kemien are not confirmed by the sources The Ramberg quotations are the same ones checked for the link to Wöhler's synthesis; the article itself sits behind a Cloudflare check.
Other links
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Wöhler: artificial formation of urea from ammonium cyanate
refuted by · Confidence: low
The synthesis of urea from ammonium cyanate (inorganic by the classification of the time) is traditionally regarded as the refutation of the doctrine of vital force; historians reject this.
Dispute: A textbook case. The textbook thesis: the 1828 experiment "killed" vitalism. What historians say. (1) McKie (Nature, 1944): there was no synthesis in the strict sense (the starting materials were of organic origin), "chemists continued to assert the existence of vital force"; those who believe that "Wohler drove vitalism out of organic chemistry will believe anything". (2) Brooke (Ambix, 1968): the famous passages of the correspondence "referred to the transformation of a salt to a non-salt, and the identical elemental composition, and not mainly to the absence of vital functions". (3) Ramberg (Ambix, 2000): Wöhler himself nowhere mentions vitalism in the paper ("Nowhere in the paper did Wohler mention explicity any impact of the synthesis on vitalism"); Berzelius's reply concerned the oddity of the salt's transformation ("It is a very odd circumstance, that the nature of the salt so completely disappears when the acid and ammonia unite") and did not raise the question of the vital force; in the Lehrbuch of 1837 Berzelius still describes the Lebenskraft without a single reference to Wöhler; Liebig in 1837 noted the preparation of urea "without the assistance of the vital functions" but "said very little about the fate of the vital force"; vitalism "had as many definitions as adherents and served widely different functions, such that it could never be refuted by anyone experiment". (4) Vitalism lived on in chemistry and biology: Pasteur on fermentation, Driesch in the 20th century (SEP: "some researchers continued to develop vitalist theories well into the 20th century"). Bottom line: the claim that Wohler's experiment refuted vitalism should itself be treated as contested, and the real line runs to isomerism and to the disciplinary independence of organic chemistry. (5) The myth itself formed after the experiment: the first printed version in Kopp (Geschichte der Chemie, 1843 and 1847), "most likely derived from private verbal claims made by Wohler himself, or by Wohler's close friend Liebig" (Ramberg); Kolbe's textbook of 1854 supplied the prototype and Hofmann's obituary of 1882 fixed the canon; Cohen and Cohen (1996) showed that textbooks repeated it to the end of the 20th century. Ramberg explains the myth's persistence by its function: autonomy of organic chemistry from physiology, synthesis as the discipline's defining practice, a national narrative and pedagogical convenience.
Link sources
- Wöhler -> Berzelius, 22 1828, Ramberg 2000 (1828)
I can make urea without need of a kidney or even an animal, be it man or dog.
- Ramberg 2000 (2000)
Historians now agree that the synthesis, at least by itself, could have had, and indeed had, little real impact on vitalism.
- Ramberg 2000 1837 (2000)
the vital force was still very much a reality for Berzelius
- SEP, Life (2023) Verified 20 Sep 2026
Students sometimes learn about Friedrich Wöhler's synthesis of urea from ammonium cyanate. A cartoon version of history has that event as the ultimate death knell of vitalism, though the view persisted for decades afterward.
- Ramberg 2000 (2000)
The earliest known published formulation of the Wohler Myth appeared fifteen years after the event, in the first (1843) and fourth (1847) volumes of Hermann Kopp's Geschichte der Chemie.
- Ramberg 2000 (2000)
organic chemistry should be regarded as an autonomous discipline with its own aims and explanatory methods
"Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.
Further reading
Not evidence: these carry no quotation and support nothing we wrote. They are books and scans to read next.
- Wöhler -> Berzelius, 22 1828, Ramberg 2000 (1828)
Both quotations on this card come from Ramberg P.J., "The Death of Vitalism and the Birth of Organic Chemistry", Ambix 47(3), 2000, which is paywalled: Taylor & Francis serves no text and no open copy was found. We have not yet been able to verify the wording by any instrument.
Node sources
- Ramberg P.J. The Death of Vitalism and the Birth of Organic Chemistry: Wöhler's Urea Synthesis and the Disciplinary Identity of Organic Chemistry. Ambix 47(3): 170-195 (2000)
the vital force was still very much a reality for Berzelius
- Ramberg P.J. The Death of Vitalism and the Birth of Organic Chemistry: Wöhler's Urea Synthesis and the Disciplinary Identity of Organic Chemistry. Ambix 47(3): 170-195 (2000)
not a single reference whatsoever to Wohler or the urea synthesis