Why can't I upgrade to mountain lion from 10.6.8

I am using a Macbook 4,1 (not sure how to identify whether it's early or late 2008).
I want to upgrade to Mountain Lion, so I spent $50 getting additional memory in order to be able to upgrade. I installed the extra memory, but the app store isn't letting me download the software because it says it's not compatible with my computer. Could someone help me understand why? I don't want to have wasted $70 on the extra memory & the mountain lion software update.
Here are my specs:
Model: Macbook 4,1
Memory: 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Processor: 2.1 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Software: 10.6.8
Available space on hard drive: 106.72 GB
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Ben

There are times when the best upgrade to run newer software is to
get a newer computer built to run it; the specifications of hardware
and software are available online as are upgrade specs.
For computer model info, Apple Support has a bit still online; for
more going back some years, see everymac.com or mactracker.ca
At this Support page, you can get some idea of what path one could
use to see what conditionally may be an OS X upgrade option...
http://www.apple.com/support/osx/upgrade/
The vintage issue and obsoletism can affect ideas on how to upgrade
since software requires a minimal level of hardware support and a
degree of higher specs than minimum in order to run more than OS X.
Snow Leopard with 4GB RAM is not a bad place to leave an older Mac.
If you should have software that is not new but still very good, it should
be able to run a few great programs. A later model MacBook Pro could
support other newer software ambitions or application needs.
Good luck & happy computing!

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