Transcriber's Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
Variations in hyphenation have been standardised, but other variations in spelling, accents and punctuation are as in the original.
There are several very wide tables in the book (e.g. Table A is 16 columns/380 characters wide). These have been divided into blocks of 3 or 4 columns. The row alignment has been preserved and, where appropriate. the 1st column repeated for each block.
Where the use of ditto (") has been intermittent in tables, it is been replaced by the word represented.
The Errata and Corrigenda have been implemented, except for the final item:
For the words evolution and evolved, read passim in the Botanical and Zoological parts, perfection and perfected, as the text may require.
THE
RAY SOCIETY.
INSTITUTED MDCCCXLIV.
LONDON.
MDCCCXLVII.
ELEMENTS
OF
PHYSIOPHILOSOPHY.
BY
LORENZ OKEN, M.D.
PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ZÜRICH; &c. &c.
FROM THE GERMAN
BY
ALFRED TULK,
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THE RAY SOCIETY.
MDCCCXLVII.
C. AND J. ADLARD, PRINTERS,
BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE.
"Of all truths relating to phenomena, the most valuable to us are those which relate to the order of their succession. On a knowledge of these is founded every reasonable anticipation of future facts, and whatever power we possess of influencing those facts to our advantage. Even the laws of geometry are chiefly of practical importance to us as being a portion of the premises from which the order of the succession of phenomena may be inferred."
John Stuart Mill.
Begun in the autumn of the year 1845, without the cognizance, or at the suggestion of a single human being, the present Translation is due to the fact of its original having encountered a somewhat kindred spirit, and aroused therein the desire to render others participant, if possible, in the large amount of instruction it is so well calculated to afford. And now that the work is done, what remains for the labourer at second-hand to say by way of preamble to his newly-dressed wares? Had the book been printed within the pale of a philosophical or physico-theological sect, the Translator's final duty would have been clearly enough prescribed. Already bound to the profession of "particular tenets," his main object would be to indulge in a laudatory but servile abstract of his author's doctrines, or, if having set out with the expressed intention of illustrating their bearings upon the state of science past, present, and to come, he would become so drunk beforehand with the large and unbridled potation of his creed, as to surprise the casual reader by informing him that such an intention is useless, for the two stand in direct antithesis to each other. Examples of this mode of procedure are not wanting at the present day, whether at home or abroad. They are the produce of that spirit, which, rife enough in the Middle Ages, has been so graphically described by Professor Whewell under the title of the "Commentatorial," and "whose professed object is to explain, to enforce, to illustrate doctrines assumed to be true, but not to obtain additional truths or new generalizations." While from dealings of this character, as being utterly opposed to the sacred cause of Truth, I turn away with feelings of repugnance, to which the lessons of some personal experience have lent their aid, it is not my business, upon the other hand, to enter the lists of controversy against those who, having neither the capacity, nor the desire of its cultivation, for the higher walks of science, delight to dismiss a work of the present kind with some idle anathema of mysticism or evasive outcry for more facts.
I refrain from essaying to give any condensed formula or outline[A] of Professor Oken's Physio-philosophy: first, because its leading points have been already noted in his own prefaces to the German work and its translation; secondly, because the book will, I trust, best speak for itself to those who shall come with minds unprejudiced and duly prepared, each one in his particular department, to its study; and, lastly, because any such attempt would necessarily involve an amount of historical and critical details, which must be here superficially treated and so misplaced. Suffice it to observe, that the present work stands alone in Germany, as being the most practical application upon a systematic scale of the principles advanced by Schelling, more especially in the Mathesis and Ontology; for the concluding part or Biology stands almost "per se." As such it will form, apart from other and higher considerations, a readily available introduction to the writings upon similar subjects of Carus, Steffens, Hegel and others, and may induce further attempts to render, by translation or history, the English student familiar with much of what at present is known only by scattered fragments in journals, or through the medium of reviews. From what has been said, the reader will be at no loss to discern in what light the Translator humbly desires to be viewed in reference to the present work. He rests content with the confident hope that its pages will be, at least, found eminently suggestive, that new thoughts will be awakened by facts and their relations being here cast in a fresh mould, that shall stimulate others in the field of inquiry, and open paths hitherto untrod. In this he is but expressing the sentiments of the author himself, and acknowledging what the present time with its accumulating mass of knowledge presses upon us more and more—the necessity of work, wherein abstract science and experience, theory and facts shall advance together, the Ideal in part receiving and reflecting back with increased lustre the light which it has derived from the Real or outward semblance of things.
Meanwhile, it is with no small amount of diffidence and hesitation that the present Translation will quit my hands. Hemmed in by a rigid dialectic terminology upon all sides, I have had difficulties of no ordinary kind to contend with in adapting a language, composed of such varied elements as our own, to meet the requisites of general clearness and conciseness that form so prominent a feature of the German work. If errors and obscurities exist, the blame, it will be observed, attaches to myself, not to the distinguished author. Ill-health has conflicted much with the calmness and repose of mind so indispensable to an undertaking, at once novel in kind and character to the English reader; or otherwise, these (my last labours unto any extent as a Translator) might have been rendered more worthy of the Ray Society and the objects it has in view.
To those who have kindly afforded me assistance in the progress of the work, and to the latter body for undertaking it, I here return many grateful thanks. The Author himself in a letter to the Translator, dated Jan. 12, 1847, acknowledges the acceptance of his work by the Society in the following words:—"The intelligence of my Physio-philosophy having been deemed worthy of translation by so goodly and enlightened a Society, cannot be otherwise unto me than a source of delight."[B]
ALFRED TULK.
[A] For this the reader may be referred to the 3d vol. of Prof. Blainville's Hist. des Sciences de l'Organisation; Par. 1845; or better still, to the sketch (preceded by a view of Schelling's philosophy), which is given by M. Saint-Agy in the Tome Complémentaire of Cuvier's Hist. des Sciences Naturelles, 1845. He there rightly observes of Oken's work, that "pendant les quarante dernières années il n'a presque paru en Allemagne d'ouvrages d'anatomie, de physiologie, de physique et de chimie auxquelles elle n'ait servi de base." For what a master-mind like Oken's is capable of creating, I would especially refer to his theory of the Cranial Homologies, which has been in our own country so beautifully carried out, modified, and proved by the extensive researches of Professor Owen.
[B] "Die Nachricht dass meine Naturphilosophie von einer sociferigen und erleuchteten Gesellschaft der Uebersetzung für würdig erachtet worden ist, konnte nicht anders als mir Freude gewähren."
[AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION.]
It is with no readiness or pleasure that I write introductions of any kind, and usually abstain from doing so, partly because they appear to me like a kind of apology or makeshift for the author, and partly because the contents of the book itself should indicate his status or position. With regard, however, to the history of the work, some few words are certainly requisite for its Translation.
I wrote the first Edition of 1810 in a kind of inspiration, and on that account it was not so well arranged as a systematic work ought to be. Now, although this may appear to have been amended in the second and third edition, yet still it was not possible for me to completely attain the object held in view. The book has therefore remained essentially the same as regards its fundamental principles, such as those concerning the formation of matter, the protoplasmic substance (Schleim-Substanz) and vesicular form of the organic mass, the signification and function of the organs, as also the principles of classification in Minerals, Plants and Animals, so that all this is consequently as old as the first edition. It is only the empirical arrangement into series of plants and animals, that has been modified from time to time in accordance with the scientific elevation of their several departments, or just as discoveries and anatomical investigations have increased and rendered some other position of the objects a matter of necessity. This susceptibility to change will of course be persistent in the future, although the principles themselves should continue wholly unchanged; ay, the very stability of the latter will tend the more to invite the naturalist to the pursuit of empirical inquiries, by determining beforehand in what direction he is to extend his point of view, and thus spare himself the trouble of blindly and laboriously groping about in the dense labyrinth of facts. Such a work therefore as the present can only approximate completion through the progress made in science, and each new edition will supply some defect of its predecessor in the distribution or parcelling out of things.
In the first edition the principle was raised of individual bodies being alone the object of Natural History, and that in the next place they are to be arranged according to the combination of their organs or component parts, and by no means after the division or mere form of a single organ; that, for example, a special organ or anatomical system lies as the basis of each Vegetable and Animal class, and that there must be therefore as many classes, and no more, as there are cardinal organs present upon which to found them. On that account it was absolutely necessary first of all to find out these cardinal organs, and determine their rank; and, in so doing, it was shown that organs and classes are at bottom of one kind, and that the development by stages or degrees of the embryo is the antetype of that of the classes; furthermore, that each class takes its starting-point from below, and consequently that the classes do not stand simply one above the other, but fall into a series of mutually parallel ranks. Now it is this which, along with the doctrine of the infusorio-vesicular form of the organic mass, and that touching the signification of parts, as to how e. g. the blossom is the repetition of the vegetable axis or trunk, the cephalic bones that of the vertebræ, the feet of the branchiæ, and the maxillæ in turn of the feet, appears to me the cardinal point attained in my Philosophy of Nature; more especially, because it was these very doctrines which were first of all, i. e. before all the others, comprehended and almost universally adopted. The inorganic matters and activities pass, however, parallel also to the anatomical formations and functions; and that this is the case too with the spiritual or psychical functions the philosophy of the future will probably be in the condition to point out.
The reader will not expect to find that the serial arrangement of Plants and Animals, with their parallelism, has been in every instance thoroughly attained. The present is but a sample of how we are to proceed in our desire of obtaining a Natural system. With such an attempt one has something to change every year, and I have in the present translation made some alterations in respect to the Mollusca and Fishes. In this sense then it is my wish that the book may be regarded, and accordingly received with its due amount of indulgence.
LORENZ OKEN.
PREFACE.
The first principles of the present work I laid down in my small pamphlet entitled Grundriss der Naturphilosophie, der Theorie der Sinne und der darauf gegrundeten Classification der Thiere; Frankfurt bey Eichenberg, 1802, 8vo (out of print). I still abide by the position there taken, namely, that the Animal Classes are virtually nothing else than a representation of the sense-organs, and that they must be arranged in accordance with them. Thus, strictly speaking, there are only 5 Animal Classes: Dermatozoa, or the Invertebrata; Glossozoa, or the Fishes, as being those animals in whom a true tongue makes for the first time its appearance; Rhinozoa, or the Reptiles, wherein the nose opens for the first time into the mouth and inhales air; Otozoa, or the Birds, in which the ear for the first time opens externally; Ophthalmozoa, or the Thricozoa, in whom all the organs of sense are present and complete, the eyes being moveable and covered with two palpebræ or lids. But since all vegetative systems are subordinated to the tegument or general sense of feeling, the Dermatozoa divide into just as many or corresponding divisions, which, on account of the quantity of their contents, may be for the sake of convenience also termed classes. Thereby 9 classes of the inferior animals originate, but which, when taken together, have only the worth or value of a single class. So much by way of explaining the apparent want of uniformity in the system.
I first advanced the doctrine, that all organic beings originate from and consist of vesicles or cells, in my book upon Generation. (Die Zeugung. Frankfurt bey Wesche, 1805, 8vo.) These vesicles, when singly detached and regarded in their original process of production, are the infusorial mass, or the protoplasma (Ur-Schleim) from whence all larger organisms fashion themselves or are evolved. Their production is therefore nothing else than a regular agglomeration of Infusoria; not of course of species already elaborated or perfect, but of mucous vesicles or points in general, which first form themselves by their union or combination into particular species. This doctrine concerning the primo-constituent parts of the organic mass is now generally admitted or recognised, and I need not, therefore, add anything by way of apology for it or defence.
In mine and Kieser's Beyträgen zur vergleichenden Zoologie, Anatomie und Physiologie; Frankfurt bey Wesche, 1806, 4to, I have shown that the intestines originate from the umbilical vesicle, and that this corresponds to the vitellus. It is true Friedrich Wolf had already discovered it in the chick, but his was only a single instance, and completely forgotten. I have also discovered it and without knowing anything about my being anticipated, since it was nowhere taught. But I have elevated this structure to the light of a general law, and it is that unto which I may fairly lay claim. In the same essay I have introduced into the Physiology the Corpora Wolfiana, or Primordial Kidneys, but, having failed to recognise their signification, any one who pleases may filch away the credit of their bare detection.
In my Essay: Ueber die Bedeutung der Schädelknochen, (Ein Programm beym Antritt der Professur an der Gesammt-Universität zu Jena; Jena gedruckt bey Göpfert, 1807, verlegt zu Frankfurt bey Wesche, 4to,) I have shown that the head is none other than a vertebral column, and that it consists of four vertebræ, which I have respectively named Auditory, Maxillary or Lingual, Ocular and Nasal vertebra; I have also pointed out that the maxillæ are nothing else but repetitions of arms and feet, the teeth being their nails; all this is carried out more circumstantially and in detail in the Isis, 1817, S. 1204; 1818, S. 510., 1823. litt. Anzeigen S. 353 und 441. This doctrine was at first scoffed at and repulsed; finally, when it began to force its way, several barefaced persons came forward, who would have made out if they could, that the discovery was achieved long ago. The reader will not omit to notice that the above essay appeared as my Antritts-Programm, or Inaugural discourse, upon being appointed Professor at Jena.
In my Essay entitled Ueber das Universum als Fortsetzung des Sinnensystems; Jena bey Frommann, 1808, 4to, I showed that the Organism is none other than a combination of all the Universe's activities within a single individual body. This doctrine has led me to the conviction that World and Organism are one in kind, and do not stand merely in harmony with each other. From hence was developed my Mineral, Vegetable and Animal system, as also my philosophical Anatomy and Physiology.
In my Essay entitled Erste Ideen zur Theorie des Lichts, der Finsterniss, der Farben und der Wärme; Jena bey Frommann, 1808, 4to, I pointed out, that the Light could be nothing but a polar tension of the æther, evoked by a central body in antagonism with the planets; and that the Heat were none other than the motion of this æther. This doctrine appears to be still in a state of fermentation.
In my Essay entitled Grundzeichnung des natürlichen Systems der Erze; Jena bey Frommann, 1809, 4to, I arranged the Ores for the first time, not according to the Metals, but agreeably to their combinations with Oxygen, Acids, and Sulphur, and thus into Oxyden, Halden, Glanzen, and Gediegenen. This has imparted to the recent science of Mineralogy its present aspect or form.
In the first edition of my Lehrbuch der Naturphilosophie, 1810 and 1811, I sought to bring these different doctrines into mutual connexion, and to show, forsooth, that the Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal classes are not to be arbitrarily arranged in accordance with single or isolated characters, but to be based upon the cardinal organs or anatomical systems, from which a firmly established number of classes must of necessity result; moreover, that each of these classes commences or takes its starting-point from below, and consequently that all of them pass parallel to each other. This parallelism is now pretty generally adopted, at least in England and France, though with sundry modifications, which, from the principles being overlooked or neglected, are based at random, and are not therefore to be approved of. As in chemistry, where the combinations follow a definite numerical law, so also in Anatomy the organs, in Physiology the functions, and in Natural History the classes, families and even genera of Minerals, Plants and Animals, present a similar arithmetical ratio. The genera are indeed, on account of their great number and arbitrary erection to the rank whose title they bear, not to be circumscribed or limited in every case with due propriety, nor brought into their true scientific place in the system; it is nevertheless possible to render their parallelism with each other clear, and to prove that they by no means form a single ascending series. If once the genera of Minerals, Plants and Animals come to stand correctly opposite each other, a great advantage will accrue therefrom to the science of Materia Medica; for corresponding genera will act specifically upon each other.
These principles, which I have now carried out into detail, were retained in the second, and have been also in the third or present edition of the Physio-philosophy, the arrangement and serial disposition of the natural objects having, with my increase of knowledge and concomitant views of things, been amended, enlarged or diminished, as the case might require, especially in the Mineral, Vegetable and Animal systems. I am very well aware that there is many an object which does not stand in its right place; but where again is there a single system in which this is not still more strikingly the case? We have here dealt only with the restoration of the edifice, wherein, after years of long and oft-repeated attempts, the furniture may for the first time be properly distributed, without detriment to its general bearings or ground plan.
In my Lehrbuch der Naturgeschichte, the Mineralogical and Zoological portions of which are out of print, but the Botanical still to be had (Weimar, Industrie-Comptoir, 1826), I have arranged for the first time the genera and species in accordance with the above principles, and stated everything of vital importance respecting these matters. This was the first attempt to frame a scientific Natural History, and one unto which I have remained true in my last work, the Allgemeine Naturgeschichte, the principles whereof I have sought to develop more distinctly and in detail in the work now before the reader.
Thus then have I prosecuted throughout a long series of years one kind of principle, and worked hard to perfectionate it upon all sides. Yet, notwithstanding my endeavour to amass the manifold stores of knowledge so requisite to an undertaking like this, I could not acquire within the vast circuit that appertains thereunto, many things which might be necessary unto a system extending into all matters of detail. This it is to be hoped the reader will acknowledge, and have forbearance for the errors, against which every one will stumble who has busied himself throughout life with a single branch of the natural sciences. Natural History is not a closed department of human knowledge, but presupposes numerous other sciences, such as Anatomy, Physiology, Chemistry and Physics, with even Medicine, Geography and History; so that one must be content with knowing only the main facts of the same, and relinquishing the Singular to its special science. The gaps and errors in Natural History can therefore be filled up or removed only by numerous writers and in the lapse of time.
CONTENTS.
| PAGE | ||
| Conception of the Science Division of the Science. Truth. | 1 | |
| [PART I]. MATHESIS | 5 | |
| Nothing, [§ 31]. Something, [§ 50]. | ||
| A. | [PNEUMATOGENY] | 13 |
| Primary Act, [§ 55]. Primary Consciousness, [§ 59]. God, [§ 61]a. Primary Rest, [§ 71]. b. Time, [§ 72]. Polarity, [§ 76]. Motion,[§ 80]. Man, [§ 93]. c. Space, [§ 108]. Point, Line, Surface,Globe, Rotation. | ||
| B. | [HYLOGENY] | 35 |
| a. Gravity, [§ 148]. Matter, Æther, Heavenly Bodies. b. Light, [§ 182]. c. Heat, [§ 198]. Fire. | ||
| [PART II]. ONTOLOGY | 49 | |
| A. | [COSMOGENY] | ib. |
| a. Rest, Centre, [§ 209]. Motion, Line, Planets, [§ 215]. c. Form, [§ 231]. Planetary System, Comets. | ||
| B. | [STÖCHIOGENY] | 59 |
| Condensation, [§ 253]. Simple matters, Elements. a. Air [§ 282]. b. Water, [§ 294]. c. Earth, [§ 303]. | ||
| C. | [STÖCHIOLOGY] | 68 |
| Functions of the Elements. 1. Functions of the Æther, [§ 317] a. Gravity, [§ 320]. b. Light, [§ 321]. Inflexion, Refraction, Reflexion, Colours, [§ 354]. Colours and Planets, [§ 379]. c. Heat, [§ 385]. 2. Function of the Air, [§ 410]. Electrism. 3. Function of the Water, [§ 432]. Solution. 4. Function of Earth, [§ 438]. Crystallization. | ||
| D. | [KINGDOMS OF NATURE] | 95 |
| Individuals, [§ 463]. | ||
| [FIRST KINGDOM]—MINERALS | 96 | |
| I. | MINERALOGY,[§ 474]. Division,[§ 490]. | |
| a. Chemical Division | [103]. | |
| b. Genetic Division. Classes | [106]. | |
| Class I. Earth-Earths | Earths. | |
| II. Water-Earths | Salts. | |
| III. Air-Earths | Inflammables. | |
| IV. Fire-Earths | Ores. | |
| [Table A] to face page | 120 | |
| II. | [GEOLOGY] | 121 |
| I. Form of the Planet, [§ 546]. Primary Valleys. II. Organs of the Planet, [§ 570]. | ||
| A. | [Earths] | 127 |
| a. Earth Formation—Primary Rocks, [§ 573]. Granite, Gneiss, Mica-schist, Lamination, Primary Limestone. b. Water-formation, [§ 622]. Transition-rocks, Sedimentary or Stratified Rocks, Stratified Limestone, Petrifactions or Fossil Remains. c. Air-formation—Trap-rocks, [§ 681]. d. Fire-formation—Volcanic Rocks, [§ 690]. | ||
| B. | [Metallic Ores] | 148 |
| a. Metallic Veins, [§ 693]. b. Production of Ore, [§ 698]. c. Poison, [§ 755]. d. Magnetism, [§ 760]. e. Earth-magnetism, [§ 771]. | ||
| C. | [Inflammables] | 166 |
| a. Sulphur, [§ 801]. b. Coal, [§ 819]. | ||
| D. | [Salts] | 170 |
| a. Salt-periods, [§ 827]. b. Chemism, [§ 847]. | ||
| [PART III]. BIOLOGY | 178 | |
| A. | [ORGANOSOPHY] | ib. |
| I. | [Organogeny]. Galvanism, [§ 867]. Primary Organism, [§ 882]. | |
| Creation of the Organic | 184 | |
| a. Elementary Body—Protoplasma or Primary Mucus, [§ 898] Change. b. Form—Globe, [§ 926]. Primary Vesicle, [§ 933]. Infusoria, [§ 935]. Theory of Generation, [§ 943]. c. Processes of the Organic. 1. Earth-process—Nutrition, [§ 964] 2. Water-process—Digestion, [§ 971]. 3. Air-process—Respiration, [§ 977]. 4. Motion, [§ 984]. | ||
| II. | [Organognosy] | 197 |
| Division of the Organism, [§ 933], into Planetary and Cosmic Organism. Processes of the Cosmic Organism, [§ 1014]. 1. Process of Gravity, [§ 1021]. 2. Process of Heat, [§ 1024]. 3. Process of Light, [§ 1027] | ||
| [SECOND KINGDOM]—VEGETABLE KINGDOM | 204 | |
| I. | [PHYTOGENY], [§ 1038]. | |
| A. | Planetary Organs—[Vegetable Trunk]. | 206 |
| I. | Tissues, [§ 1055]. 1. Water-organ—Cellular Tissue, [§ 1056] 2. Earth-organ—Vascular Tissue, [§ 1062]. 3. Air-organ—Tracheal Tissue, [§ 1065]. | |
| II. | Anatomical Systems—Sheaths, [§ 1075]. 1. Tracheal System—Wood, [§ 1077]. Vascular System—Liber, [§ 1080]. 3. Cellular System—Bark, [§ 1084]. | |
| III. | Organs—Members, [§ 1086]. 1. Water-organ—Root, [§ 1090] Earth-organ—Stalk, [§ 1096]. 3. Air-organ—Leaves, [§ 1120]. | |
| B. | Æther-Organs—[Thyrsus or Flower]. | 228 |
| 1. Floral Envelopes, [§ 1187]. Involucrum, Calyx, Corolla—Numerical Law, [§ 1209]. Coloration, [§ 1241]. Stamen-filaments, [§ 1252]—Anthers. 2. Pistil, [§ 1276]. Style. 3. Seed, [§ 1301]. 4. Fruit, [§ 1335]. Fruit of the Flowerless Plants, [§ 1346]. | ||
| II. | [PHYTO-PHYSIOLOGY] | 255 |
| I | [Functions of the Trunk]. 1. Facts. | |
| A. | Constituent Parts. a. Inorganic Bodies—Elements, [§ 1364] b. Organic Bodies, [§ 1368]. | |
| B. | [Preliminary Events] | 259 |
| 2. Processes | 262 | |
| A. | Cellular Processes, [§ 1385]. Absorption, Evaporation, Digestion. | |
| B. | Vascular Processes, [§ 1399]. Conveyance of Sap, Mixture of Sap, Secretion. | |
| C. | Tracheal Processes, [§ 1411]. Inspiration, Nutrition, Oxydation. Galvanic Process—Sap-motion, [§ 1443]. | |
| II. | [Functions of the Floral Organs] | 272 |
| 1. Function of the Corolla—Fecundation, [§ 1454]. Irritability. | ||
| 2. Function of the Ovarium, [§ 1473]. 3. Function of the Seed. Germination, [§ 1476]. Growth, [§ 1481]. Fall of the Leaf. | ||
| III. | [PHYTOLOGY] | 279 |
| Vegetable System, §[§ 1508]-1754. | ||
| [Table B] opposite to page | 316 | |
| [THIRD KINGDOM]—ANIMAL KINGDOM | 318 | |
| I. | [ZOOGENY] | 318 |
| [Anatomy]. | 326 | |
| I. | [Tissues] | 327 |
| 1. Point-tissue—Nervous mass, [§ 1801]. 2. Globe-tissue—Osseous mass, [§ 1825]. 3. Line-tissue—Muscular mass, [§ 1835]. 4. Vesicular tissue, [§ 1846]. Integument. | ||
| II. | [Anatomical Systems] or Sheaths | 338 |
| A. | [Vegetative] | 339 |
| 1. Intestinal System, [§ 1878]. 2. Cutaneous System, [§ 1909] Branchiæ, Tracheæ. 3. Vascular System, [§ 1926]. 4. Sexual System, [§ 1999]. | ||
| B. | [Animal Systems] | 356 |
| 1. Nervous System, [§ 2018]. Brain, Senses. 2. Osseous System, [§ 2079]. Vertebral Number, [§ 2109]. 3. Muscular System, [§ 2118]. | ||
| III. | [Organs] | 378 |
| A. | [Vegetative] | 378 |
| 1. Intestinal Organs, [§ 2158]. 2. Vascular Organs, [§ 2194] Branchiæ, Lungs, Liver, Spleen, Kidneys. 3. Respiratory Organs, [§ 2246]. Coverings, Hairs. 4. Sexual Organs, [§ 2285]. Impregnation, [§ 2315]. Urinary Organs, [§ 2337]. | ||
| B. | [Animal Organs] | 404 |
| 1. Osseous Organs—Limbs, [§ 2370]. 2. Muscular Organs, [§ 2398] 3. Nervous Organs, [§ 2405]—Senses. 1. Vascular Sense—Sense of Feeling, [§ 2440]. 2. Intestinal Sense—Taste, [§ 2454]. 3. Pulmonic Sense—Smell, [§ 2468]. 4. Osseo-Muscular Sense—Hearing, [§ 2476]. 5. Nervous Sense—Vision, [§ 2488]. | ||
| II. | [PHYSIOLOGY] | 423 |
| A. | [General Functions] | 423 |
| B. | [Special Functions] | 425 |
| I. | Functions of the Tissues, [§ 2539]—Heat. | |
| II. | [Functions of the Systems]. | 429 |
| A. | Of the Vegetal Systems. 1. Digestion, [§ 2571]. Poisoning. 2. Respiration, [§ 2639]. 3. Circulation, [§ 2655]. | |
| B. | [Functions of the Animal Systems] | 442 |
| 1. Of the Osseous System, [§ 2672]. 2. Of the Muscular System, [§ 2686]. 3. Of the Nervous System, [§ 2700]. Mesmerism, [§ 2721] Sleep, [§ 2736]. Periodicity, [§ 2761] | ||
| III. | [Functions of the Organs] | 455 |
| 1. | [Functions of the Encephalic or Brain-Animal] | 456 |
| A. | [Organs of Motion]. | |
| B. | [Organs of Sensation]. | 458 |
| 1. Sense of Feeling, [§ 2786]. Sense of Taste, [§ 2821]. Sense of Smell, [§ 2835]. Auditory Sense, [§ 2849]. Speech. Sense of Sight, [§ 2902]. | ||
| 2. | [Functions of the Sexual Animal] | 477 |
| A. | Vegetal Sexual Organs—Formation of Urine, [§ 2934]. | |
| B. | [Animal Sexual Organs]. | 480 |
| 1. Male Organs, [§ 2946]. 2. Female Parts, [§ 2952]. Mammæ. Development of the Fruit or Fœtus, [§ 2981]. Parallelism of the Fœtus with the Animal Classes, [§ 3034]. Periods of Life, [§ 3502]. | ||
| III. | [ZOOLOGY] | 494 |
| A. | [Division into Provinces]. | 501 |
| B. | [Division into Circles]. | 502 |
| C. | [Division into Classes]. | 511 |
| [First Province], Somatozoa (Rumpfthiere) Splanchnozoa; | 511 | |
| including the three Circles of Intestinal, Vascular, and Respiratory Animals, or Protozoa, Conchozoa, and Ancyliozoa; with their contained Classes | up to 568 | |
| Metamorphosis of Insects, [§ 3291]. Parallelism, [§ 3299] Relationships, [§ 3301]. | ||
| [Second Province], Cephalozoa, (Kopfthiere); | 544 | |
| including the two circles of Sarcose and Sense-Animals; with their contained Classes | up to 568 | |
| D. | [Division into Orders and Families]. | 569 |
| Of those included within the Classes of the First Province or Splanchnozoa; | ||
| with their Tabular Co-arrangement | up to 614 | |
| Of those comprised by the Classes of the Second Province or Sarcozoa; with their Tabular Co-arrangement | up to 653 | |
| IV. | [PSYCHOLOGY] | 654 |
| A. | Spiritual Functions of the Somato- or Dermatozoa | 654 |
| B. | [Spiritual Functions of the Cephalozoa] | 658 |
PHYSIO-PHILOSOPHY.
[INTRODUCTION.]
CONCEPTION OF THE SCIENCE.
1. Philosophy, as the science which embraces the principles of the universe or world, is only a logical, which may perhaps conduct us to the real, conception.
2. The universe or world is the reality of mathematical ideas, or, in simpler language, of mathematics.
3. Philosophy is the recognition of mathematical ideas as constituting the world, or the repetition of the origin of the world in consciousness.
4, 5. Spirit is the motion of mathematical ideas. Nature, their manifestation.
6. The philosophy of Spirit is the representation of the movements of ideas in consciousness.
7. The philosophy of Nature that of the phenomena or manifestations of ideas in consciousness.
8. The world consists of two parts: of one apparent, real, or material; and one non-apparent, ideal, spiritual, in which the material is not present, or which is naught in relation to the material.
9. There are, accordingly, two parts or divisions of Philosophy, viz. Pneumato-and Physio-philosophy.
10. Physio-philosophy has to show how, and in accordance indeed with what laws, the Material took its origin; and, therefore, how something derived its existence from nothing. It has to portray the first periods of the world's development from nothing; how the elements and heavenly bodies originated; in what method by self-evolution into higher and manifold forms, they separated into minerals, became finally organic, and in Man attained self-consciousness.
11. Physio-philosophy is, therefore, the generative history of the world, or, in general terms, the History of Creation, a name under which it was taught by the most ancient philosophers, viz. as Cosmogony. From its embracing the universe, it is plainly the Genesis of Moses.
12. Man is the summit, the crown of nature's development, and must comprehend everything that has preceded him, even as the fruit includes within itself all the earlier developed parts of the plant. In a word, Man must represent the whole world in miniature.
13. Now since in Man are manifested self-consciousness or spirit, Physio-philosophy has to show that the laws of spirit are not different from the laws of nature; but that both are transcripts or likenesses of each other.
14. Physio-and Pneumato-philosophy range, therefore, parallel to each other.
15. Physio-philosophy, however, holds the first rank, Pneumato-philosophy the second: the former, therefore, is the ground and foundation of the latter, for nature is antecedent to the human spirit.
16. Without Physio-philosophy, therefore, there is no Pneumato-philosophy, any more than a flower is present without a stem, or an edifice without foundation.
17. The whole of philosophy depends, consequently, upon the demonstration of the parallelism that exists between the activities of Nature and of Spirit.
DIVISION OF THE SCIENCE.
18. It will be shown in the sequel that the Spiritual is antecedent to nature. Physio-philosophy must, therefore, commence from the spirit.
19. It will also be shown in the sequel that the whole Animal Kingdom, e. g. is, none other than the representation of the several activities or organs of Man; naught else than Man disintegrated. In like manner nature is none other than the representation of the individual activities of the spirit. As, therefore, Zoology can be termed the Science of the Conversion of Man into the Animal Kingdom, so may Physio-philosophy be called the Science of the Conversion of Spirit into Nature.
20. Physio-philosophy is divisible, therefore, into three parts. The first of these treats of spirit and its activities; the second, of the individual phenomena, or things of the world; the third, of the continuous operation of spirit in the individual things.
The first division is the doctrine of the Whole (de Toto)—Mathesis.
The second, that of Singulars (de Entibus)—Ontology.
The third, that of the Whole in the Singulars (de Toto in Entibus)—Biology.
21. The Science of the Whole must divide into two doctrines; into that of immaterial totalities—Pneumatogeny; and into that of material totalities—Hylogeny.
Ontology teaches us the phenomenon of matter. The first phenomenon of this are the heavenly bodies comprehended by Cosmogony; these develop themselves further, and divide into the elements—Stochiogeny.
From these elements the Earth element develops itself still further, and divides into minerals—Mineralogy; these minerals unite into one collective body, and this is Geogeny.
The Whole in Singulars is the living or Organic, which again divides into plants and animals.
Biology, therefore, divides into Organogeny, Phytosophy and Zoosophy.
After this division of the subject the question first of all arises, what is science, provided there is one.
TRUTH.
22. Science is a series of necessarily inter-dependent and consecutive propositions, which rest upon a certain fundamental proposition.
23. Now, if anything be certain it can only be one in number. If, then, there be only one certainty, there can also be only one science, from which all the rest must be derived.
24. The Mathematical is certain, and, by virtue of this character, it stands also alone. Mathematics is the only true science, and thus the primary science, the Mathesis, or Knowledge simply, as it was called by the ancients. The fundamental propositions of mathematics must, therefore, be fundamental propositions for all other sciences also.
25. Physio-philosophy is only a science when it is reducible to, i. e. can be placed upon an equal footing with, mathematics. Mathematics is the universal science; so also is Physio-philosophy, although it is only a part, or rather but a condition of the universe; both are one, or mutually congruent.
26. Mathematics is, however, a science of mere forms without substance. Physio-philosophy is, therefore, Mathematics endowed with substance.
27. The substance of Physio-philosophy must be of one kind with the form of Mathematics.
28. The certainty of mathematical propositions depends upon no proposition being essentially different from another. Though there may be much that is diversified or heterogeneous, there is nothing new in Mathematics.
For to prove a mathematical proposition is to show (or demonstrate) that it is equivalent, i. e. of the same kind with another proposition. All mathematical propositions must, consequently, resemble a first proposition.
29. Physio-philosophy must also show that all its propositions, or that all things, resemble each other, and, finally, some first proposition or thing.
30. These natural propositions or natural things must, however, resemble also mathematical propositions, and depend, after all, upon the primary proposition of mathematics or the axiom.
Now then comes the question, what is the first principle of Mathematics?
[PART I.]
MATHESIS—OF THE WHOLE.
NOTHING.
31. The highest mathematical idea, or the fundamental principle of all mathematics is the zero = 0.
The whole science of mathematics depends upon zero. Zero alone determines the value in mathematics.
32. Zero is in itself nothing. Mathematics is based upon nothing, and, consequently, arises out of nothing.
33. Out of nothing, therefore, it is possible for something to arise, for mathematics, consisting of propositions, is a something in relation to 0. Mathematics itself were nothing if it had none other than its highest principle zero. In order, therefore, that mathematics may become a real science, it must, in addition to its highest principle, subdivide into a number of details, namely, first of all into numbers, and, finally, into propositions. What is tenable in regard to mathematics must be equally so of all the sciences; they must all resemble mathematics.
34. The first act towards realization or the becoming something, is an origination of Many. All reality can, accordingly, manifest itself only in multiplicity.
That which belongs to the Many is a Definite; this again is a Limited; the Limited is a Finite. The Finite only is real.
The question now arises, how it happens that mathematics becomes a multiplicity, or, what is the same thing, a reality, a something.
35. The reality of mathematics consists in the universality of its quantities; viz. numbers or figures. Every number, and every thing which belongs to mathematics, can be derived from no other source than zero.
Mathematical multiplicity, or its reality, must have proceeded, therefore, out of zero.
36. Zero, however, contains no number and no figure really in itself; it contains, forsooth, neither 1 nor 2, neither a point nor a line within itself. The Singulars or details cannot, therefore, reside in a real, but only an ideal manner in zero; or, in other words, not actually, but only potentially. The conditions here are the same as with all mathematical ideas. We may conceive, e. g., an idea or definition of a triangle in so general a sense that it shall comprehend all triangles, without, however, a definite triangle being actually intended, or without even a triangle actually existing. In order that the idea of the triangle be realized, it must become a definite, in other words, an obtuse or an acute triangle. In short, the idea of the triangle must multiply itself, be self-evolved, or else it is as naught in reference to mathematics, or only a geometrical zero.
The individual objects or figures of mathematics thus attain existence, so far only as the idea comprising them emerges out of itself and assumes an individual character.
It is clear that all individual triangles taken together closely resemble the ideal triangle, or, to express the same in more general terms, that the Real is equivalent to the Ideal, that the former is but the latter which has become dissevered and finite, and that the aggregate of every Finite is equivalent to the Ideal. This will probably be rendered still more distinct by the example of ice and water. The crystals of ice are nothing else than water bounded by definite lines. So, also, are the Real and Ideal no more different from each other than ice and water; both of these, as is well known, are essentially one and the same, and yet are different, the diversity consisting only in the form. It will be shown in the sequel that everything which appears to be essentially different from another, is so only in the form.
The Real and Ideal are one and the same, only under two kinds of form. The latter is the same under an indefinite, eternal, single form; but the Real is also the same, yet under the form of quantity, and, as will be shown, of multiplicity. An infinity resides in both; in the Real an endlessness of individual forms; in the Ideal but one endless form; in the latter case an eternity, in the former an infinity. The quantity and multiplicity of the whole of mathematics is contained in the same manner in the 0, that the quantity and multiplicity of the triangles are in the ideal or primary triangle. Mathematics is a system of nullities or nothings, and this admits of being easily proved.
37. Zero is indeed the universality of mathematics, this, however, is not real, but only ideal. Every number issues out of zero, like the multiplicity of the real triangles out of the primary triangle. This progression of numbers out of zero takes place through a process of becoming determinate and limited; just as the real triangles are only definitions of the absolute triangle. The process of becoming determined is identical with becoming a Finite; becoming real is called becoming finite. Mathematical singulars or numbers can, therefore, be nothing else than zero disintegrated, or rendered real by determination.
What zero is in infinite intensity, that are numbers in endless extensity. Zero is of two forms: under the ideal it is mere intensity; under the real mere extensity, or a series of numbers. The latter is only expanded intensity; the former, extensity concentrated on the point; both are, consequently, one and the same in toto. Numbers are identical with zero; they are zero in a state of extension, while zero is equivalent to numbers in a state of intensity. The sense in which numbers are said to come out of zero is, therefore, very clear; they have not issued forth from zero as if they had previously resided individually therein, but the zero has emerged out of itself, has itself become apparent, and then was it a finite zero, a number. So, also, does the idea of a circle become a real circle, not from the latter emerging from the former, but from this itself becoming manifest. The individual circle is a manifestation or phenomena of the spiritual circle.
38. All realization, therefore, is not the origin of a something that has not previously been; it is only a manifestation, a process of extension taking place in the idea.
Thus the Real does not arise out of the Ideal, but is the Ideal itself in a condition of definition and limitation, as are, e. g. the actual triangle or the actual circle. If, then, the Ideal and Real be one, everything is necessarily identical, and this identity dominates not merely between the Ideal and Real in a general sense, but between all individual members of the Real.
39. The identity of every Different, or of all things among themselves and with the highest unity, is the essence of things. The limitation or definition of the Ideal is their form. Limitation is the Impartient of form.
40. Limitation is originally only a quantitative relation, e. g. the size of the angle in a triangle; later on it becomes also a relation of direction or of position.
In both cases the limitation is only an ideal relation. Realization also takes place, therefore, only in an ideal manner; and the Real is therefore ideal, not simply as it regards its form, but also its essence. Every Plural resembles itself and the highest principle in essence; or, in other words, all Singulars are united through essence with the highest One. All diversity of the Plural resides merely in the form, limitation or manifestation. The one unchanging essence possesses one ideal form, which is that of pure unity, and the same essence has a limitation, a real form, which is that of subdivision. There is only one essence in all things, the 0, the highest identity; but there are infinitely numerous forms.
Numbers are naught else than different forms of the one unchangeable essence, namely, the 0.
If, then, all numbers are only zero in a state of extension, and are consequently identical with it, the question arises, what are the first finitings of zero, or as what does it appear when it is no longer merely ideal or indefinite; in short, what is the first form of the real zero, or of the essence in general?
ESSENCE OF NOTHING.
41. The ideal zero is absolute unity, or monas; it is not a singularity, such as one individual thing, or as the number 1; but an indivisibility, a numberlessness, in which neither 1 nor 2, neither a line nor a circle can be found; in short, an unity without distinction, an homogeneity, brightness, or translucency, a pure identity.
42. The mathematical monas is eternal. It succumbs to no definitions of time and space, is neither finite nor infinite, neither great nor small, neither quiescent nor moved; but it is and it is not all this. That is the conception of eternity.
Mathematics is thus in possession of an eternal principle.
43. Since all the sciences are equivalent to mathematics, nature must also possess an eternal principle.
The principle of nature, or of the universe, must be of one and the same kind with the principle of mathematics. For there cannot be two kinds of monades, nor of eternities, nor of certainties. The highest unity of the universe is thus the Eternal. The Eternal is one and the same with the zero of mathematics. The Eternal and zero are only denominations differing in accordance with their respective sciences, but which are essentially one.
44. The Eternal is the nothing of Nature.
As the whole of mathematics emerges out of zero, so must everything which is a Singular have emerged from the Eternal or nothing of Nature.
The origin of the Singular is nothing else than a manifestation of the Eternal. Thereby unity, brightness, homogeneity are lost, and converted into multiplicity, obscurity, diversity.
Unity posited manifoldly is an expansion without termination, but one that always remains the same.
Realization or manifestation is an expansion of the Eternal.
FORMS OF NOTHING.
45. The first form of the expansion or manifestation of the mathematical monas, or of 0 is + -. The + - is nothing else than the definition of 0. 0 is the reduction of the positive and negative series of numbers, upon which the whole of arithmetic depends. A series of numbers is, however, nothing else than a repetition of a + 1 or a-1; consequently, the whole of arithmetic reduces itself to + 1-1.
What, however, is a + 1, or-1? Obviously nothing else than a single + or-. The figure is quite superfluous, and only indicates how often + or-has been assumed; instead, therefore, of + 1 we can posit +; instead of-1 simply-. The series + 1 + 1 + 1 is synonymous with + + +; or instead of 3 we may posit + + +, and so on for every figure ad libitum. The figures are nothing more than shorter signs for the two highest mathematical forms or ideas of numbers. Numbers are nothing different from the ideas of numbers; they are the latter themselves, only several times posited. Essentially numbers do not exist, but only their two ideas. These ideas, however, exist an infinite number of times.
Multiplicity or real infinity is, accordingly, nothing special or particular, but only an arbitrary repetition of the Ideal, an incessant positing of the idea. The idea posited is reality, non-posited it is = 0.
46. The first multiplicity is duality, + -. This duality alters nothing in the essence of the monas, for + - is = 0. It is the monas itself only under another form. In multiplication it is thus the form alone that changes.
There are many forms, but not many essences.
47. The first or primary duality is not, however, a double unity, both members of which are of equal rank, but an antagonism, disunion, or diversity. Many diversities are multiplicity. The Many is thus complex. The first form is not therefore a simple division of zero or the primary unity, but an antagonistic positing of itself, a becoming manifold.
48. Every Finite is in the same manner only the self-definition of the Eternal. The Eternal becomes, accordingly, real, by binary self-division. When the Eternal is manifested, it is either a positive or negative. The whole of arithmetic is nothing else than a ceaseless act of positing and negating, of affirming and denying.
All realization is nothing else than the act of positing and negating. The act of positing and negating of the Eternal is called realization.
49. Positing and negating is, however, an act or function. Arithmetic is, therefore, a ceaseless process of acting or performing. Numbers are acts of the primary idea, or, properly speaking, stationary points of its function, and hence proceeds a division into the two ideas + and -. If these remain always alone nothing is added to them. They alone produce the whole science of arithmetic, and simply because they are never exhausted by the act of positing themselves repeatedly, but capable after this of again becoming suppressed. Since + is in essence nothing else than a simple positing, a mere affirmation, and-a mere suppression of this affirmation, a negation; so is the positive unity = 1 nothing but an affirmation once declared, and the whole series of numbers is a reiterated affirmation. The act of affirmation alone gives the number, and the latter is thus the definite quantity devoid of intrinsic value. Bare affirmation alone without reference to any substance is unity, duality, &c.
SOMETHING.
50. Still, however, there must be something, which is posited and negatived. The form must have a substance.
This something is the primary idea, or the very Eternal of mathematics, the zero; for + - is = 0. The + is naught else than zero affirmed; the-naught else than this + 0 negatived = - 0. Now since an affirmation once declared is = 1, so are unity and zero identical. Zero differs only from finite unity in that it is not affirmed.
51. The - is not simply the want of affirmation, but its explicit abstraction. The + presupposes the 0; the - the + and 0; the 0, however, presupposes neither + nor -. Purely negative quantities are, as is known, a nonentity, because they can only bear reference to positive quantities. The - is, indeed, the retroversion of + into 0; yet alone, therefore, it is not perfectly equal to 0. It is a retrovertent, and consequently the second act, which presupposes the positive. By the - we know what is not; the 0 is, however, a nothing in every respect. The-is the copula between 0 and +.
52. If the + is the 0 posited, so is it a nothing posited or determined. This position is, however, a number, and therefore a mathematical something. The nothing thus becomes a something, a Finite, a Real, through the simple positing of itself, and the something becomes a nothing by the removal of this self-position. The nothing itself is, however, the mere neglect of its self-position. The something, the + -, has consequently not arisen or been evolved out of nothing, or been produced from it by addition; but it is nothing itself; the whole undivided nothing has become unity. The nothing once posited as nothing is = 1. We cannot speak of production or evolution in this case; but of the complete identity and uniformity of the nothing with the something; it is a virgin product or birth.
53. Zero must be endlessly positing itself, for in every respect it is indefinite or unlimited, eternal. The number of finite singularities must, therefore, pass into the Infinite.
54. The whole of Arithmetic is nothing but the endless repetition of nothing, an endless positing and suppressing of nothing.
We can become acquainted with nothing but the nothing, for the Original of our knowledge is the 0.
There is no other science than that which treats of nothing.
Every Real, if it were such in itself, could not be known, because the possibilities of its properties would pass into the Infinite. The nothing alone is cognizable, because it has only a single property, namely, that of having none; concerning which knowledge no doubt can be entertained.
A.—PNEUMATOGENY.
PRIMARY ACT.
55. The + - or, in other words, numbers are acts or functions. Zero is, consequently, the primary act. Zero is, therefore, no absolute nothing, but an act without substratum. Generally speaking there is, therefore, no nothing; the mathematical nothing is itself an act, consequently a something. The nothing is only postulate.
56. An act devoid of substratum is a spiritual act. Numbers are, accordingly, not positions and negations of an absolute nothing, but of a spiritual act.
57. The zero is an eternal act; numbers are repetitions of this eternal act, or its halting points, like the steps in progression. With zero the Eternal therefore originates directly, or both are only different expressions for one and the same act, according with the difference of the science wherein they are employed. Mathematics designates its primary act by the name of zero; Philosophy by that of Eternal. It is an error to believe that numbers were absolute nothings; they are acts and consequently realities. While numbers in a mathematical sense are positions and negations of Nothing, in the philosophical they are positions and negations of the Eternal. Everything which is real, posited, finite, has become this out of numbers; or, more strictly speaking, every Real is absolutely nothing else than a number. This must be the sense entertained of numbers in the Pythagorean doctrine, namely, that everything or the whole universe had arisen from numbers. This is not to be taken in merely a quantitative sense, as it has hitherto been erroneously, but in an intrinsic sense, as implying that all things are numbers themselves, or the acts of the Eternal. The essence in numbers is naught else than the Eternal. The Eternal only is or exists, and nothing else is when a number exists. There is, therefore, nothing real but the Eternal itself; for every Real, or everything that is, is only a number and only exists by virtue of a number. Every Singular is nothing for itself, but the Eternal is in it, or rather it is itself only the Eternal, though not the Eternal in itself, but affirmed or negatived. The existence of the Singular is not its own existence, but only that of the Eternal subjected to an arbitrary repetition; for the act of being and affirming are of one kind.
58. The continuance of Being is a continuous positing of the Eternal, or of nothing, a ceaseless process of becoming real in that which is not. There exists nothing but nothing, nothing but the Eternal, and all individual existence is only a fallacious existence. All individual things are monades, nothings, which have, however, become determined.
The Eternal must posit without cessation, for otherwise it would be an actual nothing, while in fact it is an act; but it must incessantly suppress also this position, else it would be only a finite act, or an act which had only one kind of direction, that of affirmation + + + +, and so on, which represents only the half of arithmetic. The totality of the Finite is, therefore, of eternal duration also: the Singular, however, issues forth and disappears like the numbers in arithmetic. The eternal duration of the Finite consists, however, only in ceaseless repetition. Such an Eternal is to be distinguished therefore from the Primary eternal, and is called the Infinite. The totality of finite things is not therefore eternal, but only infinite.
PRIMARY CONSCIOUSNESS.
59. Two tendencies are present in the primary act, both of which being inseparable are one in kind. It has the tendency to posit, and also to suppress, itself. The unity strives unto binary division or to antagonism, even as the 0 strives to produce + or -. While the primary act itself posits, it does this indeed out of its own strength, and that which it posits is also none other than itself; it itself posits i. e. actively; and is itself posited i. e. passively; it itself posits itself, is the self-position of itself; for + is nothing else than 0 self-posited. The positing and posited act are of one kind; the latter, however, is the Real, the Finite; the former the Ideal, the Eternal. Both are distinguished from each other through this only, that the Real is the posited, numbered, and consequently determined act; the ideal, however, the positing, consequently numbering and thus undetermined act. While, however, the + is nothing else than 0, it must necessarily bear a relation to it, and thus retrograde into the 0. This retrogression is an act in the reverse direction, or what is indicated in mathematics by negation. The - has been therefore necessarily granted with the +, else the + would not be represented as = to 0. The act of positing is therefore at the same time also an act of negation. So soon as the 0 is or exists, it is = + -. The realization of the Eternal is accordingly a complete antagonism of itself. For 0 is equal to + -, not simply = + or = to-.
60. The being of the Eternal is therefore a self-manifestation. Every Singular is nothing but a self-manifestation; since all numbers are only positions of zero or of +, which can never be without-. In every essence there are two, but the two are the one essence itself, which posits itself by division. The Positing of the Eternal in the sense in which it has been hitherto adopted, namely, as a realization of the same, is not merely an act of positing, not an indeterminate Positing, but an antagonism of itself. The zero is simply the indeterminate Positing, or the negative Positing; but the number, or the real is the antagonism of zero, the + -, or the self-manifestation. The 0 cannot be thought of for itself alone without the +; the latter, however, not without 0, as well as the-also not without 0; for it is the suppression of the posited 0, namely, the +. Every act of self-manifestation is therefore twofold, a manifestation (= +), but a manifestation of itself, consequently a retrogression into 0 (= -). Through negation the Finite becomes united with the Eternal. Every disappearance of the Finite is a retrogression into the Eternal; for it must return to whence it came. It has arisen out of nothing, is itself the existing nothing; it must therefore retrograde again into the nothing.
GOD.
61. The self-manifestation of the primary act is self-consciousness. The eternal self-consciousness is God.
62. The continued act of self-consciousness, or becoming self-conscious repeated, is called representation. God is therefore comprehended in ceaseless representation. Representations are single acts of self-consciousness. Single acts, however, are real things. All real things, however, are the world. The world therefore originates with the representations of the Eternal.
63. The representations are, however, manifested or attain only reality through expression. The world is therefore the language of God; the creation of the world the speaking of God. "God spake, and it was." It is not merely said, God thought and it was. Thought belongs merely to spirit; in so far, however, as it becomes apparent, it is a word, and the sum of all apparent thoughts is speech. This is the created, realized system of thought. The thought is only the idea of the world, but speech is the idea actualized.
64. As thought differs from speaking, so does God from the world. Our world consists in our apparent thoughts, namely, the words. The universe is the language of God. So far as the thoughts lie at the foundation of the words, it can be said, that our world were the play of our thoughts, and the actual world that of God's. The word has become world. Worldly things have no more reality for God, than our words or our language for us. We carry a world within us while we think; we posit or create a world without us while we speak. Thus God carries the world within himself while he thinks; he posits the same without himself or creates it, while he speaks. In so far as thought necessarily precedes speech, it may be said, that there would have been no world, if God had not thought. In the same sense it may be also said, that all things are nothing but representations, thoughts, ideas of God. So soon as God thinks and speaks is there a real thing. To speak and to create are one. All, that we perceive, are words, thoughts of God; we are ourselves nothing else than such words or thoughts of God, consequently his metatypes or images, in as far as we unite in ourselves the whole system of speech. There is therefore no being without self-consciousness. That only which thinks is (for itself); that which does not think is not for itself, but only for some other consciousness. The world differs from God as doth our speech from us. The self-consciousness of God is independent of the world, even as our self-consciousness is independent of our speech.
65. The divine laws are also the laws of the world; this has therefore been created and governed in accordance with eternal and immutable laws.
66. Physio-philosophy is the history of creation; the creation, however, is the language of God. The system of thought, however, lies necessarily at the foundation of the system of speech. Now the science of the laws of thought is called logic; physio-philosophy is therefore a divine doctrine of speech or a divine logic. The laws of speech instruct us in the genesis of language. Physio-philosophy is, therefore, the science of the genesis of the world, or Cosmogony.
FORM OF GOD—TRIUNITY.
67. As the complete principle of mathematics consists of three ideas, so also does the primary principle of nature, or the Eternal. The primary principle of mathematics is 0; so soon, however, as it is actual, is it + and-; or the primary idea resolves itself in being at once into two ideas, each of which resembles the other in essence, but differs from it in form. Thus it is here one and the same essence under three forms, or three are one. Now that which holds good of mathematical principles, must hold good also of the principles of nature. The primary act is manifested, or operates under three forms, which correspond to the 0, + and-.
These three ideas of the Eternal are all equivalent to each other, are the same primary act, each of them being whole and undivided, but each otherwise posited. The positing primary act is the whole Eternal; the posited is likewise the whole Eternal, and that which is subtractive, retrogressive, combining the two first, is also the whole Eternal. Although all three ideas are equivalent to each other, still the positing idea ranks first, the posited second, and the combining third; not as if they had first arisen successively (this is impossible, for they are coexistent, namely, before all time), nor as if they occupied different positions (for they are everywhere); but only according to their order and value. How one may be three and three one, is thus rendered comprehensible only by mathematics.
68. The first idea is the original, that therefore which is thoroughly independent, which having arisen from and being based upon itself, has consequently emerged from nothing else; in short, it is the eternal idea, like the mathematical 0 = Monas aoristos. Everything is possible with it; it can propose and solve all problems, knows therefore everything and creates everything. It is the generative, creative and paternal idea.
69. The two other ideas have emerged out of the first, although apparently equivalent to it; yea, they have themselves issued out of themselves. The second idea is, therefore, Dyas aoristos, and corresponds to the mathematical +; the third idea is the Trias aoristos, and corresponds to the mathematical-, so that by the three the primary trinity 0 + - is completed. The first idea labours or, what is more, rejoices from all eternity to convert itself into the two others. The action or the life of God consists in eternally manifesting itself, eternally contemplating itself in unity and duality, eternally dividing itself and still remaining one. The second idea has issued next from the first, and is therefore related to it as Son is to Father, when the ideas are viewed as personified. The third idea has emerged conjointly from the second and first, and forms therefore the spiritual union, the mutual love between both. It may be therefore simply called Ghost or Spirit, if it is thought of as personified.
70. Since every Singular, having been produced through the primary trinity, is only the expressed word of the primary trinity, so also must their qualities be recognizable in the same. The Singular is not simply therefore a position of one idea, but of all three. All things have issued out of the trinity. The essence of the universe consists in the trinity which is unity, and in the unity which is trinity; for it is a likeness of the primary trinity. Being, generally, is an act, and that, indeed, of a threefold nature. Apart from act or function there is no being. That, which is called nothing, is in itself an act, and there is, therefore, no absolute nothing. The nothing is only something relative to a particular being. Even the mathematical zero is not nothing, but an act. It is nothing only in reference to particular numbers. Numbering is a repetition of one and the same act. The forms or conditions of the primary act are Rest, Motion, and Extension or expansion.
a. PRIMARY REST. (First form of the Primary Act.)
71. The primary idea is the position simply without any relation, or any antagonism; it is the oscillating resting point in the universe, around which everything collects itself, and from which everything emerges; the Centrum ubique, circumferentia nusquam. The primary idea is the substratum of everything, which will come before us in the sequel of this work. Everything depends upon this primary essence; all action, motion, and form issues forth from it; or rather, in all phenomena naught else appears than the primary essence in different stages of position, just as in all numbers naught else appears but the zero. The primary idea is the absolute beginning. This primary idea is the non-representable, the never apparent and yet omnipresent, idea; but which is always withdrawing itself from our view when we imagine or believe that we gaze upon it; in short, the Spiritual, which declares itself in everything and yet always remains the same. The origin of all action may be termed the primary force.
b. MOTION, TIME. (Second form of the Primary Act.)
72. The primary idea operates only, while it posits; through positing, however, arises a succession of positing, or numbers; positing and successive positing are one. The function of the primary idea consists in an eternal repetition of the essence; the primary act is a continuous self-repeating act. Repetition of the primary act devoid of another substratum is Time. Time is none other than the eternal repetition of the positing of the Eternal, corresponding to the series of numbers + 1 + 1 + 1 + n. Time has not been created, but has emerged directly out of the primary act and its position; it is the function of God himself. Something has thus already originated, which appears to conduct us into the universe. Time is the first portal through which the operation of God passes over into the world. Time is the infinite succession of numbers or the mathematical nothings. The mathematising, numbering act is Time. Numbers, however, are Singulars or finitudes, which constitute the world.
73. Time is infinite, for it is the totality of positing; it is only the points or numbers in it that are the Finite.
74. All things are created in time; for time is the totality of Singulars. Time is no stationary quantity, which is always changing itself into something new during its progressive flux. It is not a continuous stream, but a repetition of one and the same act, namely, the primary act, like as it were to a rolling ball, which constantly returns upon itself. There is no endless, still less an eternal thing; for things are only positions of time. Time itself is, however, only repetition, and thus also a suppression of these positions. The vicissitude of things is in fact time; if there be no change, there is also no time. Time is an universal property of things. Exemption from time is only in the Eternal.
75. Time, not being itself the Finite, but creating it, is not itself a Real, but still an Ideal, a form only of the primary act, an idea, with which finite things have been directly posited. Time is the act of numbering; numbering is thinking; thinking is time. Our thinking is our time. In sleep there is no time for us. God's thought is God's time; God's time, however, is all time, consequently time of the world. Time is not of earthly but heavenly descent or origin. In so far a divine quality belongs to all finite things. They are divine, in so far as they are time; terrestrial, in so far as they are evanescent moments of time.
POLARITY.
76. Time is an action of the primary power; and all things are active only in so far as they are filled or inspired with the idea of time. The whole activity of things, all their forces arise out of the primary act or primary power, are only moments of the same. There are, however, no positive without negative numbers, consequently also no moments of time without suppression of the same. There is, therefore, no single force, but each is the position of + and-. A force consisting of two principles is called Polarity. Time is, therefore, the primary polarity, and polarity is manifested at the very instant in which the creation of the world is stirring.
77. Polarity is the first force which appears in the world. If time is eternal, polarity must also be eternal. There is no world, and in general nothing at all without polar force.
78. Every single thing is a duplicity.
79. The law of causality is a law of polarity. Causality is valid only in time, is only a series of numbers. Time itself has no causality. Causality is an act of generation. The sex is rooted in the first movement of the world.
MOTION.
80. Polarity may be viewed as a single positing of + -; if, however, this positing repeats itself, Motion originates, viz. when many + - + - are consecutively posited, and thus the principal poles separate from each other, as in an iron bar when magnetizing. Time is a polar positing of the primary act, and an endless repetition of this positing; through this originate individual things, whose succession is motion.
81. Primary motion is the result of primary polarity. All motion has originated from duplicity; consequently from the idea in a dynamic not a mechanical manner. A mechanical motion, which might be produced ad infinitum by mechanical impulses, is an absurdity. There is nowhere a purely mechanical motion; nothing, as it is at present in the word, has become so by impulse; an internal act, a polar tension lies at the bottom of all motion.
82. Motion itself, however, is not twofold in character; it is unity, but the result of duality. In time we have to distinguish the polar act of position, and the act of repeating this position, which is motion. Motion is the simple repetition of the polar, twofold act, or the ceaseless separation of poles; but, as in every polar line the two poles are in all cases together, so even is this mutual separation of poles only a repetition of polarity.
83. Motion also is not created, but has emerged directly from the Eternal, is the primary function itself repeated. Motion is the ever self-manifesting, consequently progressive God.
84. Motion is thought, which is manifested as speech. Thought polarizes the fingers. If the thought be powerful it moves them, and through them other bodies. Speech is only a thought that has passed over into motion. The world is the thought of God that has been translated into motion, the moved thought of God—thought spoken. It is here evident that the world is not simply the thought but the language of God; for there is no action without motion; consequently no thought without speech, and vice versâ.
85. There is no thing which were without motion, just as there is none without time. A Finite without everlasting motion is a contradiction. All rest in the world is only relative, is but a combined motion. There is only rest in the Eternal, in the nothing of nature.
86. The primary motion is only possible in a circle, because it fills every thing.
87. The motion of finite things by polarity may, in a wider sense, be called life; for life is motion in the circle. Polarity, however, is a constant retrogression into itself. Without life there is no being. Nothing is, simply by virtue of being, e. g. by its mere presence; but everything of which a being can be declared, is only, or manifests itself, by its polar motion or by life. Being and life are inseparable ideas. While God acts, he creates life.
88. Life is nothing new, that came first into the world, after it was created, but an Original, an idea, a moved thought of God, the primary act itself with all its consequences.
89. There is in the universe no vital force of its own; the individual things lie not there some time and await the polarizing breath, but they first become through the breath of God. The Causa existentiæ is life.
90. There is nothing properly dead in the world; that only is dead which is not, only the nothing. Something can only cease to live, when its motion ceases; this, however, ceases only when deprived of its polarity; the polarity dissolved, however, is zero. Thus individual things retreat into the Absolute, if they cease to live. Everything in the world is endowed with life; the world itself is alive, and continues only, maintains itself, by virtue of its life; just as an organic body maintains itself, only while it is constantly being generated anew by the vital process.
91. Every living thing is twofold in character. It is one persistent in itself, and one immersed in the universe. In everything, therefore, are two processes, one individualizing, vitalizing, and one universalizing, destructive. By the process of destruction, the finite thing seeks to become the universe itself; by the vitalizing process, however, the variety of the universe, and yet with that to remain a Singular. That only is truly living which represents the Eternal, and the whole multiplicity of the universe in the Singular.
92. The whole in the singular is called Individual. The individual is an example of computation, which admits only of being developed, from its comprehending the whole of arithmetic in itself. Nothing individual can persist eternally; it must eternally move itself, consequently fill up everything, displace everything, must become itself the universe.
MAN.
93. Time consists of single acts; i. e. the life or the absolute act does not work with one stroke, but an infinite number of times. All acts, therefore, taken together, all finite things in time, are equal to the primary act or the Eternal.
94. There are two totalities, a primary totality 0 + -, and a secondary, or the summing up of all numbers 0 + n-n; the former the eternal, the latter the finite totality, or the one the eternity, the other the infinity.
95. The more a thing has adopted into itself of the Manifold of the universe, by so much the more is it animated, by so much the more does it resemble the Eternal. It is conceivable, for a finite or living essence to unite all numbers or acts in itself, without, however, its being the very Eternal. It would, however, be obviously the most perfect finite essence, and, as a secondary totality, be the likeness of the primitive; the former the compound universality, the latter the identical.
96. Such an essence would be necessarily the highest and last, whereunto creation could attain; for more than the universe cannot be represented in one thing. With such an essence creation would be closed or would terminate.
97. Since the realization of the Eternal is a becoming self-conscious, so is the highest creature also a Self-conscious, but a Singular. Such a creature is the finite God, or God become corporeal. God is Monas indeterminata, the highest creature is Monas determinata, Totum determinatum. A finite self-conscious being we call Man. Man is an idea of God, but that in which God wholly, and in every single act becomes an object unto himself. Man is God represented by God in the infinity of time. God is a Man representing God in one act of self-consciousness, without time.
98. Man is God wholly manifested. God has become Man, zero has become + -. Man is the whole of arithmetic, compacted, however, out of all numbers; he can therefore produce numbers out of himself. Man is a complex of all that surrounds him, namely, of element, mineral, plant and animal.
99. The other things below man are also ideas of God, but none of these ideas is the whole representation of arithmetic. They are only parts of the divine conscience posited in time; but man is God, planted or posited uninjured in time. Man is the object in the self-consciousness of God; the creatures below man are, however, the objects only of the consciousness of God. Thus, if God places before and from himself only single qualities, there are worldly things; if, however, God in this crowd of representations attains to his own entire representation, then arises Man. God is = + 0-, Man = + [oo] 0-[oo], the animal is = + n 0-n. The animals are only represented in part. The subject of self-consciousness is = + 0-; the objects, however, are the numbers which are equivalent to this, being = [oo] + 3 + 2 + 1 + 0-1-2-3-[oo]. Thus if all numbers, all world-elements, together with their perfections, occur in consciousness = + 0-, there is a Man; if only single, and perhaps but few things, such as food, stones, &c. (with the entire exception of the celestial bodies), enter consciousness, there is an animal. They are represented only partly or in a portion of the universe, but man is represented wholly or in all its parts. Animals are fragments of man.
100. No creatures below Man can possess self-consciousness. They have, indeed, consciousness of their several acts and of their sensations, and possess memory; but as these several acts are only parts of the world, or of the great consciousness, and are not the Whole, they can never become objective unto themselves, never imagine. Animals are men, who never imagine. They are imaginative, but never of themselves wholly; they are therefore beings who never attain to consciousness concerning themselves. They are single accounts; Man is the whole of mathematics.
FREEDOM.
101. An action, which is not determined by some other action, is free. God is free, because apart from him there is none other action.
102. Man, as being an image of God, is likewise free; as being an image of the world he is devoid of freedom. Man is, therefore, in his primary commencement or principle free, but not in his end or object to be attained. In the resolution Man is free, in the execution he is not free. The mathematician can select at pleasure any proposition; but having selected it, must solve it in accordance with necessary laws and with definite numbers and figures. Man is a twofold being, compounded of freedom and necessity.
RETROSPECT.
103. Hitherto we have considered simply the arithmetical relations of the primary act and of the universe. We have shown, to wit, that all ideas fluctuate simply under the forms of numbers; that everything was comprised in the 0 + -. Time was only the active series of numbers; motion was the actual arithmetical calculation, namely, the process of reducing numbers to absolute identity, to zero.
104. Life is moreover only a mathematical problem, which, the higher it ascends, approaches so much the nearer to absolute zero in its attainment of the infinity of numbers, becomes so much the more endowed with life.
105. Arithmetic is the science of the second idea, or that of time and motion, or of life; it is, therefore, the first science; mathematics not only begins with it, but creation also, with the becoming of time and of life. Arithmetic is, accordingly, the truly absolute or divine science, and therefore everything in it is also directly certain, because everything in it resembles the Divine. Theology is arithmetic personified.
106. Hence it follows in the most perfect manner, that every science, if it would possess certainty, must resemble arithmetic. Now a science always implies a science treating of certain objects; all certain objects must, therefore, resemble the objects of arithmetic; or all objects, of whatever denomination, whether natural or spiritual, must correspond to arithmetical objects, consequently in idea be numbers, an actual arithmetical problem, as it were the numbers of motion, of life.
107. A natural thing is nothing but a self-moving number; an organic or living thing is a number moving itself out of itself, or spontaneously; an inorganic thing, however, is a number moved by another thing; now, as this other thing is also a real number, so then is every inorganic thing a number moved by another number, and thus ad infinitum. The movements in nature are only movements of numbers by numbers; even as arithmetical computation is none other than a movement of numbers by numbers, but with this difference, that in the latter this operates in an ideal manner, in the former after a real.
c. FORM, SPACE. (Third form, of the Primary Act.)
108. Viewed arithmetically every position is a number, geometrically, however, it is a point. What the 0 is in arithmetic, the point is in geometry; the one the arithmetical, the other the geometrical nothing. Both sciences commence with nothing and are only different views of nothing. The 0 is a temporal nothing (a number), the point a spatial nothing (a figure).
109. The first motion of numbers or of points is the motion of the primary number, the 0, or the primary act; and this motion depends upon the multiplicity of numbers or points, upon the disintegration of the identical primary number, upon the + -. The first motion of the primary act is an expansion of itself into multiplicity, whereby not merely sequence but an addition also is posited. The primary act is not simply positing, but also posited; as the former it is time, as the latter it is time posited universally. Time remaining stationary is Space. Space is not different in essence from time, but only according to position; it is only time resting, while this is moved, active space.
110. Space has first arisen out of time, as the third idea out of the second, but only ideally. It has arisen out of it, while, time being the act of positing, it is the posited; now as time posits from eternity, so is space also from eternity and in eternity. The eternity of space, however, depends not upon duration, but upon extension; it is unlimited.
111-112. Space is everywhere, as time is ever. Two spaces can no more exist than two times. There is only one Eternal. Time and space are, however, nothing special that has attained unto the Eternal, but the Eternal itself. They are also not two kinds of qualities subsisting near each other, but are one in kind. The series of numbers is infinite, thus universal; space is consequently universal.
113. Space is an idea like time, a form of God like time; it is the passive form, the extended 0 = + 0-.
114. All temporal things are also in space and limited. An unlimited thing extended through the whole of space is an absurdity. God's operation only is extended through the whole of space; it is space itself; when he willed to act, he became time; but when he was time, he became space.
115. Space has not been created, but has emerged out of the Eternal; it is nothing new in the universe, nothing next to God and present with him, but coexistent with God.
116. Single things must be both in space and in time; or a real thing first originates, where time and space cross each other at one point; they cross, however, everywhere, and therefore things are everywhere.
117. There is no void or empty space, no time and no place, were a Finite could not be; for time and space are virtually the manifesting primary act, the zero that has become thing.
POINT.
118. Time has begun with number, space with the point, with the spatial nothing, with the zero of space. This point necessarily posits itself "ad infinitum;" it extends itself also in all directions, and necessarily in equal distances. Such an extended point is the Sphere.
119. The sphere is nothing peculiar, nothing new in the thoughts of God, but only the point expanded, while this again is but a contracted sphere, just as the totality of numbers is an expanded 0, and this their contracted sphere.
120. Space is spherical, and, indeed, an infinite sphere. The sphere has been posited with space, and consequently from eternity; it is also an idea, and that, indeed, the total idea; for time and space have in it been posited together.
121. For God to become real, he must appear under the form of the sphere. There is no other form for God. God manifesting is an infinite sphere.
122. The sphere is, therefore, the most perfect form; for it is the primary, the divine form. Angular forms are imperfect. The more spherical a thing is in form, by so much the more perfect and divine is it. The Inorganic is angular, the Organic spherical.
123. The universe is a globe, and everything, which is a Total in the universe, is a globe.
LINE, LIGHT, MAGNETISM.
124. While the point expands, it is active; this active expansion is a simple repetition of the point, and this is a Line, which in the sphere, however, is a Radius. With time originates not merely a series of numbers, but together with it also the line. The line and time are of one kind, repeated positions of the nothing, of the point. It is consequently clear, how that time were a repeated positing of the Eternal itself: for the line is only a repeated self-positing of the point, of the nothing. God fluctuating in his eternity, and the point, are one in kind; but God acting is a line, being or existing a sphere, i. e. the point in the act of being.
125. The line is nothing new in creation, but time itself, when regarded more closely. God creates the line as little as he does time; but this originates unto him, while he moves, while he thinks. It is impossible to think without producing a line. The line is therefore from eternity, is a series of numbers.
126. The essence of the line does not consist in its two extremities being continued with equal significance into the Infinite; but in its radiality, i. e. that one extremity turned towards the centre has become central, converging, absolute; but the other turned towards the periphery has become divergent, finite, multiplicity. The primary line is a line produced with two antagonized characters. The central extremity is 0, the peripheral is the bisected zero = ±. This radial line gives us the antetype of a new polarity. The two extremities are not related as + and-towards each other, but as 0 and + -. At the instant, when a line originates in the universe, it is not a line merely, or an indefinite line that originates; but one that is definite at both extremities, polar, indeed, but after a determinate fashion. Nothing, not even a finite thing, exists in an indefinite manner.
127. There is no mathematically straight line in the world: all real lines are polar; they are all rooted in God by one extremity, by the other in finitude. The primary act becomes in its first operation not merely a posited nothing, a numerical series; not merely time, not merely an aoristic line, but a Linea determinata; in short, God can step forth into time only as radius. The Monas determinata is a Monas radialis, or a centroperipheric monas.
128. The essence of the primary antagonism is a centroperipheric antagonism. As centre is related to periphery, so is here one pole related to the other. Polar existence and central or peripheral existence are one. Primary polarity is centroperiphery. The primary line is constantly in a state of polar action, which is called tension; for it is always converging and diverging, at once central and peripheric. Every line originates, therefore, only by tension, and is only by it, yea, every line is nothing else than this tension.
129. A line, one extremity whereof strives towards the centre, the other to the periphery, the one to identity, the other to duality, will exhibit itself in the world as a line of Light, in the planet as a Magnetic line. Magnetism is centroperipheric antagonism, a radial line, 0—±, the action of the line being cleft at one extremity. Magnetism has its root in the beginning of creation. It is prophesied with time.
SURFACE, ELECTRICITY, OXYDATION.
130. The periphery is the boundary of the sphere, and is, consequently, a superficies or Surface. This, therefore, originates also directly with the positing of the Eternal.
131. As the primary line is not a purely polar, but a radial line, so is the primary surface not a level, but a curved or convex surface.
132. There is no level surface in the universe, no pure surfaces any more than pure lines. All surfaces are curved. For example, those of drops, of the heavenly bodies, of animals. The surface of a sphere is no Continuum; but consists properly of the divided peripheric and upright extremities of the radii; it is a ±.
133. The surface of a globe has no centre, no 0, like the radius; but is an absolute Dualized, a ± without 0.
134. This mode of operating of the primary act is manifested as electricity. Electricity is a merely peripheric antagonism, without centre, thus without union; an eternally Dissevered without rest. Electricity is thus also a special form, under which polarity makes its appearance, and is likewise rooted in the primary creation. There is, consequently, no thing which were not magnetic and electric.
135. The idea of a surface is constantly that of surrounding. It is not generated by a section of a globe, but by the completion, the circumferential limitation of the sphere. The essence of the sphere is boundary. Every surface is finite, is convex. In the divine position a surface never occurs, save on the boundary of the primary sphere.
136. As no thing can exist without a line, without a radius, so also none can be without surface, without circumscription. The single surface is identical with the Locus of the old philosophers. Every Finite is a closed whole, and that thing is of the most perfect kind which has the most perfect closure, surface, periphery (or skin).
137. The surface is also not different from the primary act, but a form of the primary act itself; or a boundary, which, however, nowhere remains stationary, but is always displaced by means of the eternal act. Therefore the world is at once unlimited and limited; the latter in reference to the closure of the surface, the former to the endless expansion of the same.
138. The periphery is the object in divine consciousness, the point which, posited without the centre, is thus one and the same, centre (subject) and periphery (object). It is everywhere the same point, the same 0, wherever it be posited. Hence the profound saying, "Mundus est Sphæra, cujus centrum ubique, circumferentia nusquam."
139. The surface stands in antagonism to the line, like periphery and centre; it stands perpendicular upon the radius, and can never pass parallel to linear action. Electricity ranks in eternal antagonism to magnetism.
SPHERE, HEAT, CHEMISTRY.
140. The line and surface are density, the representation of time and space; they have therefore like these originated out of nothing, namely, out of the point. The sphere is the expanded nothing. Nothing thus extended, or nothing posited, becomes a something, viz. line, surface, density, polarity. The line is a long nothing, the surface a hollow nothing, the sphere a dense nothing; in short, the something is a nothing which has received only predicates. All things are nothings with different forms. The point is = 0, the line = +, the surface = + -, the sphere = + 0-.
141. The internal motion of the globe, or the becoming of the globe, is manifested in the universe as Heat, in the planet as Chemistry.
ROTATION.
142. The primary sphere is rotating, for it has originated through motion; the motion of the sphere cannot, however, be progressive, for it fills everything. God is a rotating globe. The world is God rotating. All motion is circular, and there is everywhere no straight motion any more than there is a single line or straight surface. Everything is comprehended in ceaseless rotation. Without rotation there is no being and no life; for without it, there is no sphere, no space and no time.
143. The more perfectly circular the motion of a thing is, so much the more perfect is it. Straight motion is only the mechanical; such, however, exists not through itself. The more a body moves in a straight direction, the more mechanical and ignoble is it. Straight motion too yields only straight form.
GEOMETRY.
144. The sphere with its attributes is the totality of numbers, is thus a rotating number. The universe is the same. In arithmetic the quantity of divine positions is regarded; in the sphere, however, the direction of these positions, or of series of numbers.
145. The doctrine of the sphere is Geometry; for all forms are contained in the sphere. All geometrical proofs admit of being conducted through the sphere. Geometry has originated directly from arithmetic, or is arithmetic itself, with this difference, that the latter regards series of numbers as individualities, the former, however, as a whole. Arithmetic is a geometry seriebus discretis; geometry is an arithmetic seriebus continuis, a solidified arithmetic.
146. Geometry is a science of equal value with arithmetic; it is even as certain, because it has no other propositions; it is equally eternal, is the same realization of the primary act, the Deus geometrizans of the Pythagoreans. Everything to be certain must therefore resemble geometry, must be itself a position of geometry, only under other relations.
147. Geometry is more real, more finite, therefore also more apparent, and, as it were, more material than arithmetic. The ideas in it have become something determinate, have assumed form, while before they still fluctuated formless in arithmetic; here were they mere ghosts without veils, but in geometry they have received these veils. Time has received for its form, its body, the line; space, the surface; life, the globe, consequently the rotation for its form or body. It is to be here remarked, that ideas always become more real and more finite, always approximate nearer to actual manifestation, the lower they descend or the more they are considered individually. Geometry has not originated later than arithmetic, but is only a more individual view of ideas, arithmetic being more universal. Geometry is arithmetic with stationary numbers, = points. The Divine thus approximates to manifestation, to materiality, the more individual it becomes; and this is very natural, for it verily limits itself more and obtains always more predicates. The more a thing obtains predicates, by so much the more perfect is its finiteness. By geometry we are actually transferred into the universe, but only into the formal, in which it has, like a skeleton, been sketched for us solely upon a general plan; namely, as infinite extension, in which line and periphery, central and peripheric action, magnetism, electricity, and rotation, &c., have been prefigured.
B.—HYLOGENY.
a. GRAVITY. (First form of the World. Rest.)
148. In arithmetic the divine acts are only undetermined = numbers. In geometry the numbers obtain determinate or finite directions, become figures. All figures have, however, an especial direction to the centre. Figures are nought but centres manifoldly posited.
149. The direction to a centre is, however, an act, which never ceases to operate. The primary act strives therefore to posit ad infinitum nought else than a centre, i. e. points.
150. If there are points without the centre, it so happens only because the succeeding points have been displaced by the points that were first posited. The peripheric points are only with reluctance out of the centre. The globe only exists in an uneasy state, because it has no place in the centre.
151. Every finite thing strives towards the centre. The finite is only something, in so far as it is posited in the centre, and it maintains its value according to its distance from the centre. This exertion or endeavour, by virtue of which things would be in the centre, is Gravity.
152. What the retrogression of numbers into 0 is, that is the gravity in the sphere. The gravity is a geometrical reduction of position unto nothing. The sphere is only produced by action, and that indeed by the centroperipheric. This action must therefore manifest itself in two ways, as centrifugality and centripetality. The first is the dispersion of the primary act or of points, the second is the collection of the primary acts or points into the unity, and this is gravity. Centrifugality originates only in a constrained manner or with reluctance, for the primary act always seeks the centre, and only moves towards the periphery, because it has no longer any place there. If centripetality be regarded as a force, then is centrifugality no force, but only centripetality itself retreating from the centre; even as cold and darkness are probably no particular forces in themselves, but only weaker degrees of heat or light.
153. Gravity is not motion simply, but motion unto a centre, unto rest.
154. That which is itself in the very centre is therefore not heavy. The primary act is not heavy.
155. As all finite things are positions of the primary act in the sphere out of the centre, so are all of them heavy. Gravity is the force that strives unto the centre, and which is there impeded by other forces already present therein. A finite thing, that is not heavy, is a contradiction. The gravity of the single thing is weight. The world itself has no weight, or else it must be heavy in relation to something else without it. The ideas of gravity and weight, as we speak of them in reference to individual things, are not applicable to the world, still less to God.
156. Gravity is also nothing new in the world, but it is only the positing of the centre in space. As necessarily as the Eternal, when it manifests itself, must appear under a definite form, so also must it be necessary with the eternal effort, to return into itself or appear as gravity. Gravity is nothing different from the primary act, nothing specially created; but the spherical position of the same tending unto the centre.
157. Now, as the sphere has originated out of nothing, so also has gravity originated out of the same. The form is a formed nothing: the form is, however, no form without internal forming force, and to this gravity belongs. The being of form and the being of gravity are one. Gravity is a weighty nothing, a heavy essence, striving towards centre, a realization of the first divine idea. Gravity cannot, therefore, be perceived in the universe as a whole, but only in its parts.
158. If gravity is the primary act that has become real, so must everything originate out of gravity, or everything must acknowledge gravity to be the common mother of the finite. It is in all cases, or in every individual thing, only the gravity, the Ponderose, which exists, otherwise nothing exists; for verily nothing exists without the divine primary, which is incessantly a central, act.
MATTER.
159. Points, which strive towards the centre, are compressed, because they would all occupy one and the same spot. These points, however, are forces, which take up space and therefore exclude other points. A space that excludes another is Matter. Everything which has been said of gravity holds good in respect to matter; for matter is only another word for gravity. A heavy thing is a material thing.
160. To the totality of a thing belongs not merely its figure nor its tension or motion simply, but also its gravity. This is, however, a whole sphere. Matter is, consequently, a total position of the primary act, a trinity of ideas.
161. Matter has been imparted with space and time. All space is material; ay, matter is itself the space and the time, the form and the motion; for space is nothing special, but only extended or formed force. It is here also shown that the nothing does not exist. There is as little nothing in the universe as there is an 0 in mathematics. So soon as the nothing is, there is something. The whole universe is material, is nothing but matter; for there is the primary act eternally repeating itself in the centre. The universe is a rotating globe of matter.
162. But the universe is an acting gravity, a matter, in which the centroperipheric antagonism is active; it is therefore everywhere matter only, which acts. There is no activity without matter, but also no matter without activity, both being one; for gravity is itself the activity, and itself the matter. Matter is only limited activity. A matter which does not move is not; it can only subsist through continuous origination, through life. There is no dead matter; it is alive through its being, through the eternal that is in it. Matter has no existence in itself, but it is the Eternal only that exists in it. Everything is God, that is there, and without God there is absolutely nothing.
163. It is an illusion to believe that matter were an actual something subsisting in itself. It is even so with numbers, upon which a reality also is bestowed, when they are still demonstrable nothings. A number is nothing truly than an affirmation several times repeated, a reiterated deposition of what is nothing, what is no number. This deposition happens likewise in the universe, where it is the primary act, that is deposited. Where, however, this is, no other station can occur. This exclusive property is usually called the Impenetrable, the Material. It cannot be said in what spot matter arises, so secretly and suddenly does it start into existence. It is matter properly at the first manifestation of being, of time and of space; for at the same instant also the line, surface, density and gravity have been given. The line does not exist if it does not act; the sphere does not exist if it be not inert, i. e. if its forces do not strive towards the centre, and consequently to connexion. Nothing exists if it is not material. Matter is accordingly coexistent with the presence of God.
164. The Immaterial does not exist; for even the Material which is not, is the Immaterial. Everything that is, is material. Now, however, there is nothing that is not; consequently, there is everywhere nothing immaterial. Immateriality is only a postulate principle, by which to get at matter, like the 0 in mathematics, which is nothing in itself, does not even exist, but that still must be posited, in order that numbers may bear a reference to it.
165. God only is immaterial; he is the only permanent immaterial invention, and the axiom being the Formless, Polarless, Timeless. A spirit with form is a contradiction. But the matter also does not exist, because matter is nothing, because it is only a sphere of central actions, which is gravity.
166. The material universe is called nature. There can be only one nature, as well according to time as to space and to divine animation. There is only one God, whose operations expressed, or materially posited, are nature. Nature has originated out of nothing like time and space; or with these has nature also been. God has made heaven and earth out of nothing.
167. God has not found matter co-eternal with himself, and, like an architect, arranged this to his fancy; but he has, out of his own eternal omnipotence, by his will simply, evoked the world out of nothing unto existence. He has thought and spoken, and it was.
168. The doctrine of matter is the Philosophy of Nature. It is therefore the science also of all Singulars, like geometry and arithmetic; thus at bottom is only the third part of mathematics, and is even as certain and demonstrable as this.
ÆTHER.
169. The matter, which is the direct position of God, which fills the whole universe, which is the time in a state of tension and motion, the formed space, the heavy primary essence, I call the Primary matter, the matter of the world, cosmic matter, Æther. The æther is the first realization of God, the eternal position of the same. It is the first matter of creation. Everything has consequently originated out of it. It is the highest, divine element, the divine body, the primary substance = 0 + -.
170. The æther fills out the whole universe, and is, consequently, a sphere, yea, the world's sphere itself; the world is a rotating globe of æther.
171. The sphere of æther, not as yet individualized, I call chaos. From the beginning was chaos, and this was æther, and unto the end will chaos become æther. The æther is the apparent nothing, and thus it is the chaos. This was not the latter and not the former, but an existing nothing.
172. The æther is the imponderable matter, because it is gravity and totality itself, because it is the infinite matter.
173. The æther has no life; it is the only mortuum, because it is the heavy 0. In æther, however, reside all the principles of life, all numbers; it is the substratum, the essence of life. There is only one universal substratum in nature.
HEAVENLY BODY, POINT, CENTRE, GRAVITY.
174. Everything which emerges out of æther and is posited as a finite matter, can be nought else than a repetition of the sphere.
175. The æther subdivides into an endless number of subordinate rotating spheres, and so it must, because the world is not a whole devoid of parts, but only a whole in the parts, only a repetition of positions. The chaotic sphere of æther consists essentially at one and the same time of an infinity of spheres.
176. A chaos has never existed. The General never exists, but only the Particular. Chaos was from eternity a multiplicity of ætherial globes. Chaos is only postulate.
177. Every sphere of æther is complete in itself and closed, and therefore rotating around its axis and around the universal axis of the æther.
178. The new rotation in the heavenly bodies condensed in the periphery of the æther, follows as a necessary result, on account of the unequal velocity of its outwardly and inwardly lying points.
179. Every individual sphere has two motions in itself; the one depends upon the representation of the primary act in itself by the special rotation; the other re-attempts to regain the primary centre, through the general rotation around the universal axis.
180. Such a sphere rotating for itself is called a Heavenly body. A heavenly body again is the image or metatype of the Eternal; it is a whole, it is alive; everything, even the highest, can originate out of it; everything develop itself out of the coagulated, individualized æther. The heavenly body has a double life, an individual and an universal, since it is for itself and at the same time in the general centre. Every Individual must have a double life.
181. The heavenly bodies are as old as the æther, consequently they are from the beginning, and endure also without end. As they are only coagulated æther, so are they susceptible of being resolved into the same, such as are probably the comets.
b. LIGHT, LINE. (Second form of the World. Motion.)
182. The æther is from eternity, not merely monas, but also dyas; from eternity it stands in a state of tension with itself, when, as the image of the existing primary act, it has emerged out of itself into two poles. This self-egression or self-manifestation of æther, or of substance simply, is the self-egression of the point into the periphery. As dyas, æther exists under the form of polarity, of central and peripheric effort; the æther in a state of tension is a centroperipheric antagonism.
183. The æther is separated from eternity into a central and peripheric substance, and that indeed through its simple position as a globe. The universe is a duplicity in the form of æther; it is both indifferent and different æther, both central and peripheric. The central mass of æther may be called sun, the peripheric planet. Only one sun can originate in a globe of æther, but many planets.
184. Between the central and peripheral mass of the æther, between the sun and planets, there is tension. Through this solar-planetary tension the æther fluctuating between the two becomes polarized.
185. The tension of the æther proceeds from the centre and thus from the sun. Were the sun to be removed, the polarity of the æther would be annulled; it would be again the indifferent chaotic æther, the null and void matter. For the absolute substance to exist it needed not simply itself, but an identical centre and a dissevered periphery. Is there no peripheric mass, no planet, so also is the tension annulled; centre cannot be without periphery, sun not without planet, nor vice versâ. The tension of æther is thus excited by the sun and conditioned by the planet. The planet is not the principle, but the Redintegrant of the tension of æther by the opposition.
186. At that part of the universe where no periphery stands opposed to centre, no planet to the sun, the æther is not tense, but indifferent, annulled. There can thus only be columns of æther, which are rendered tense, namely, those columns of æther which are found between the sun and the planets. Near to the planets the æther is void of action, indifferent, non-apparent. There are consequently as many apparent æther-columns, as there are heavenly bodies, that stand in the process of polarity opposed to each other. These columns move with the planets around the suns. The indifferent æther of the world-space is, therefore, successively rendered tense, as the planets move around suns, and becomes again indifferent behind the planets.
187. But besides this, that columns of tension only exist, and therefore that the æther is nowhere active as a sphere, there is still no spot in the world-space where there would be only indifferent æther, nothing; for the æther consists of many globes of æther. There is thus nowhere an indifferent æther, consequently nowhere an empty space. The idea of the repletion of space is not that of the sphere, but of the columns of tension, which by their crossing in every direction form a sphere only externally.
188. That which is thought of as originally filling space is not the quiescent but only the moved, tensed æther. The former is the void space, the nothing.
189. The tension of æther is an action, which operates according to the line. This linear activity, which makes its exit from the central mass and is excited hence to the peripheral mass, is Light, or in short, light is tension of æther.
190. Light is a traction of lines or radial action; consequently an antetype of magnetism. A ray of light is a radius. The ray of light has two extremities different from each other; that turned towards the sun is 0, that which comes in contact with the planets is ±. Light is, therefore, a splitting, rending action.
191. Light is the life of the æther. Hitherto the æther was an inactive nothing, mere substratum for a future. This nothing, when it becomes centroperipheric, seeks to tear the mathematical point into radii and circumferences, appears; and this centroperipheric manifestation we call light.
192. The untensed, indifferent æther is, therefore, darkness, and this is the essence, the rest of æther. Chaos was thus darkness; the world arose out of darkness when light became. Light has originated out of darkness when the chaos was moved. Were it possible therefore for all light to vanish, the world would again return into its old nothing; for darkness and nothing are one. God has separated the light from the darkness.
193. If light be only a column of æther in a state of tension, light is or exists only between the planet and the sun; near to the planet and behind it is darkness. The primary sphere is a dark sphere, transpierced only by single rays of light. Each star, however, stands in a state of tension with another; thus many thousand rays of light stream forth from each, and fill out the world-space in all directions. There is therefore no absolute darkness, because there are infinitely numerous rays of light. In the night also there is always as much light present as is necessary to maintain the heavenly bodies in their action. For the world there is no night, but only for the planets. It will be shown that the air maintains its existence simply through the operation of light; were it therefore always dark, were night to endure for ever, the air must soon assume another composition or mixture, and everything that lives in it must fall to ruin. This is shown also by the diseases and crises of the same.
194. Light is from eternity, for the tense æther was from eternity. The dark chaos exists only as postulate. Light is time that has become real, the first manifestation of God; is God himself positing, is the dyadic God. The dyas is not merely radiality but light; or both are one, time and light are one, motion and light are one. When God numbers, when he draws lines, he thus creates light. God becoming self-conscious is light. Light is God illuminating. Darkness has accordingly never existed, although the light is derived from the darkness, like numbers and figures are out of nothing.
195. Light is no matter. There is no substance called light, but the æther is illuminant through its binary division. The sun does not, therefore, stream forth when it illumines the planets, and loses nothing of its magnitude; it is not to be feared that we shall ever lose it. That the sun is an undulating sea of flame, that it is throughout a volcano, that combustions or electrical processes of light, appearing to us as light, occur in its atmosphere; that the velocity of rotation hurls about the light-particles, and that these particles scattered in the world-space are, by an unknown route, or by means of comets, again brought back to the sun, are opinions unworthy the inquirer into nature. The sun gives out nothing but the impulse, not, however, the mechanical, which makes the space of heaven tremble upon which it shines; but the purely spiritual, as the nerves rule the muscle. The sun can never be extinguished, never become dark; for it gives out light, not as a fire, but simply by reason of its standing in the midst; its simple position, its enchainment to the planets is light. A fire upon the sun would not be perceived by us; it would not lighten nor warm us, because of its having no relation to us. The central relation of the sun toward us cannot, however, remain unobserved, and this observation is even that of light.
196. Matter has become by means of light, is a child of light, is but illuminating æther. Every binary division of matter manifests itself as light.
197. The whole universe is transparent, because everything has issued out of the tension of æther. Everything which is matter is light, and without light there is nothing. Without light the universe is not only dark but it is even not. Light is the universe, and every Finite is only a different position of light. The world is a thoroughly illuminating globe, a rotating globe of light. The solar system must have been created according to the laws of light. The phenomena of the world are only representations of optics, consequently of living geometry. What we see is nothing but optical construction or figuration. (Vid. Oken's 'Essay über das Licht;' Jena. Fromann. 1808.)
c. HEAT, DENSITY. (Third form of the World. Shape.)
198. Light is not simply a motion in itself, a mere continuous excitation of polarity in the æther, but it is also the æther itself set in motion thereby. All polar actions resolve themselves finally into motion of the polarized masses. The end of electricity, galvanism, magnetism, is motion. It will be, however, shown that all these polar functions are only repetitions of the primary polarity; this must therefore produce what the former did, namely, ætherial motion.
199. Every point of the æther becomes polar, every one attracts and repels the other; whereby motion arises in the innermost parts of the æther itself. Not a portion of the æther is moved on, but motion originates in the mass of æther itself. The æther-atoms quit each other.
200. The æther is, however, that which is filling space, is space itself, the Expansissimum of the world, the Formless and therefore that which adopts all forms. The formless æther, when it moves itself, must be connected with a phenomenon, that depends upon its expansion and identification, which is polarized by light. This action of the æther does not therefore depend upon the tension of æther, not upon production from differences in the same, but upon dissolution of the tension, therefore upon extension, upon the indifferent representation of space. This action, which is at the same time universal, can only be heat. Moved æther is Heat.
201. Heat is the contest of the indifferent æther with light; light alone produces heat. Without light the world were not only dark, but also absolutely cold. Cold is untensed and quiescent æther, death, nothing; dark and cold are one. Heat is therefore the result of light, but equally eternal with it; it is space represented really, as that is real time.
202. Heat is not moved indifferent ether, which is = nothing; but moved and tensed or the moved light.
203. Heat penetrates into thickness as an extending function, but does not oscillate between two poles like light. It is only the function of density, and depends upon nothing else, not upon lines or mere surfaces, but upon the living sphere.
204. Heat and light, although characters of one substance, yet stand in an antagonism like thickness and line, or as indifference and difference. Heat is properly the first perfected position of the primary act, while light is only the act of positing; the latter therefore is +, the former-. Or also, gravity is the absolute position, simply = 0; light is the commencing egression of this position out of itself + -, heat the completion + 0-, and therefore the position everywhere; it will everywhere deposit, therefore it is motion, repletion of space, expansion. Light is gravity become real, or 0 become real; 0 however, rendered real, is + -. Heat is as-at the same time + - and 0, or light and gravity, material light, light that is filling. Both will also assert the antagonism of their genesis through all forms of the world. The heat seeks to destroy the line, which the light endeavours to establish; heat seeks to produce homogeneity in the Dissimilar, light to effect the reverse. Heat is slow in its motion; with it the mass of æther must continually move, or move whither it will operate; light, however, acts spiritually and rapidly, without motion of the mass, but only glides continually with the latter. Heat is not created, it is no special matter different from æther. There is no body of heat.
205. Heat is everywhere where the æther is, and must consequently be regarded as a sphere. Heat is not present merely in the columns of æther between the heavenly bodies, but everywhere. Therefore heat does not move itself in the direction of the line, but it extends itself on all sides, as real space.
FIRE.
206. Light and heat were the first phenomena of the world. Heat with light, however, are Fire. Fire is the totality of æther, is God manifested in his totality. God, previous to his determination to create a world, was darkness; in the first act of creation, however, he appeared as fire. There is no higher, more perfect symbol of divinity than fire. God's whole consciousness, apart from individual thoughts, is fire. The Holy Scriptures therefore usually admit of God appearing under the form of a fire, as a fiery bush, a flame. The world is none other than a rotating globe of fire.
207. Everything that is, has originated out of fire; everything is only cooled, rigidified fire. As everything has become out of fire, so must everything to be annihilated have recourse to fire. If finite things be only fire singly posited, so must every change occurring in the same be an igneous change. Nothing changes in the world but fire. The essential change of things take place only by fire.
RETROSPECT.
208. The Triplicity of the primary act in the universe has now been completely demonstrated. The first manifestation of God is monas; to this corresponds Gravity, Æther, darkness, the cold of chaos. The second manifestation of God is the dyas; to this corresponds the æther in a state of tension, the Light. The third manifestation of God is the trias; to this corresponds the want of form, Heat. God being in himself is Gravity; acting, self-emergent, Light; both together, or returning into himself, Heat. These are the three Primals in the world, and equal to the three which were prior to the world. They are the manifested triunity = Fire.
[PART II.]
ONTOLOGY—OF SINGULARS.
A.—COSMOGENY.
a. REST, CENTRE.
209. Through light duplicity originates in the æther, by virtue of which the æther divides into central and peripheric æther. The peripheric necessarily rotates around the central. Every part of the æther is a sphere; the æther therefore is separated by the light into infinitely numerous central and peripheric spheres. Creation is an endless position of centres. The primary centre is inventive.
210. There cannot be therefore only a single central mass; otherwise the universe would be a finite.
211. The central spheres are characterized by absoluteness, the peripheric, however, by finiteness, division; the former are something in themselves, but the latter are so only by opposition; yet the two could not be without each other.
212. Every central body must be surrounded by several peripheric bodies. The peripheric spheres rotate around the central, the images of the primary centre. A Whole, consisting of a central body and several peripheric bodies, is called solar system.
213. Chaos is not conceivable, without being at the same time solar system. The solar systems are nothing specially created, but have been given with chaos or with light, are indeed only the æther separated by light. The primary matter appearing as light must appear at the same time as sun and planet. Primary act, sun and planet are of one kind, and differ only in this, that the former is posited individually in the latter, while in itself it is non-posited.
214. There is no general central body, no central sun, about which all suns and planets gravitate. The essence of the æther consists in its complete dissipation. There exists only an infinity of solar systems, which taken together form the central body. All solar systems pursue a course to and fro through each other, like the blood-globules in the vessels. The general central body is only inventive. That the general central body may be dark (that it must be, if present, from its being invisible) is an assertion which betrays an ignorance of the essence of light. A dark central body is an absurdity.
b. MOTION, LINE.
215. Sun and planet, as individual spheres, have also their own individual gravity. The æther therefore must exist otherwise than in the universal sphere. The next change of the æther is condensation, more intense gravity, because it becomes more individual, centre and periphery approximate more closely to each other. The heavenly bodies must contain more matter, more æther in an equal space than the terrestrial globe.
216. The heavenly bodies have obtained their matter nowhere else than out of the primary matter, the æther; they are condensed æther. The heavenly bodies of a solar system have derived their mass out of the æther, which is found within the confines of this solar system. The matter of the heavenly bodies was thus previous to its coagulation strewn in the space of the solar system, and has been by so much the rarer, as the space of the solar system is larger than the volume of all the planets together with the sun. It admits therefore of being calculated how much rarer the æther is than e. g. water.
217. The æther is therefore not absolutely imponderable, but only so in relation to the heavenly bodies. Light and heat are therefore ponderose substances, though they are not ponderable.
218. The separation of the æther into central and peripheric mass has happened according to the laws of light, and thus according to the centroperipheric primary antagonism. As a consequence of this, only one central body can originate in a solar system; the mass of the periphery can, however, divide into several, and must divide into as many as the light has moments of operation; of this we shall speak for the first time in treating of colours.
219. The matter of the periphery can be condensed by light into no other form than that of a hollow globe around the sun. The planets are originally concentric hollow globes, in the midst of which the sun is formed. There are several hollow globes, because the light has several points of contraction at certain distances from the sun.
220. The number of hollow planetary globes is a definite one, and it is not an arbitrary matter how many of them originate.
221. The matter of such a hollow globe of æther is still, however, rarer by so much than the present planetary mass, as that of our earth would be rarer if it were to form a hollow globe around the sun, about as thick only as from the earth to the moon.
222. This hollow globe rotates with the sun, because the whole globe of æther, which fills out the space of the subsequent solar system, rotates; therefore everything necessarily tends in one direction.
223. These hollow planetary globes, on account of the rarity of their mass, their rotation, and the greater tension of light, could not subsist in the equatorial plane of the solar system, but coagulate together in equatorial rings about the centre of the whole system. The planetary fœtuses are only solar rings, which rotate with the sun.
224. If the whole coagulated æther of the solar system be so small in quantity, that when extended around the sun in a planetary track or course, it still does not become solid; so also can the orbitar ring not persist, but it contracts itself through light, rotation and the peculiar excited gravity into a globe. This globe continues to rotate, as it did when under the conditions of orbitar ring, of hollow globe and as æther; i. e. it pursues a course around the sun. The peripheric globe travels necessarily in the same plane in which the sun rotates. This is therefore called the zodiac. This globe rotates also around its own axis and virtually in the same direction, according to which it performs its course or the sun rotates. A globe coursing and rotating around the sun in its equatorial plane and in its direction is called planet.
225. At the first aggregation of the mass of the planetary ring into a planetary globe, the latter was still very much extended, the earth extending beyond the moon. The mass was thus gaseous. What happened in the great globe of æther, of which the sun has become the centre, happens also here. An opposition of centre to periphery again originates; and a subordinate sun and new orbitar rings are formed. If the mass of the planetary equatorial ring be only small and consequently rare, it rolls into a globe and together with this into moons.
226. If it be much, consequently so dense, that it coheres, it remains stationary, and is Saturn's ring.
227. This is the genesis of the planetary system, but everything has become, and remained as it became, at one stroke. The moon can never have existed as an orbitar ring around the earth in time, or else it had been solid. Being once solid, it can no more coagulate into a globe. Still less, however, have the planets originated from conjoined moons. From whence then have the moons come? The solar system has not arisen mechanically, but dynamically; it has not become what it is by being projected or hurled from the hand of God, nor by impulses and aberrations; but by polarization according to eternal laws, according to the laws of light.
228. As a necessary number of planetary productions exists, so also is their magnitude, distance and velocity a determinate one. No planet, whatever its situation, has attained that by chance. Were the earth larger, it must also have occupied some other place, and have had another velocity, another density of mass, &c.
229. The coagulating matter of æther must collect into a larger mass in the centre than in the periphery. The centre will exist everywhere, and the periphery comes only to its behalf as if it were a scaffold or prop only to existence. The sun can only be the principle of the determination of the planets by the preponderance of its mass. Our sun comprises above 700 planetary systems in itself.
230. Sun and planet are mutually conditionated; both have originated at the same time, the former as the positive pole, the latter as the negative, as the necessary counterpoint, or the one as 0, the other as ±. The hypothesis, which surmises that the planets have come from another solar system, is not maturely considered. For how have they there originated? Such explanations are mere child's play. Sun and planet are in idea but one piece, only one line with two different extremities. The same act which polarizes the sun polarizes also the planets out of chaos. One and the same æther that has become positive, is called sun, when negative, it is called planet. Both are only a single globe of æther, the centre of which is called sun, the periphery, planet. The latter belongs to the sun, like a stone though detached from, belongs to, the earth; its rotation is therefore similar, but retarded.
c. FORM
231. The sun cannot be in the absolute middle of the solar system, on account of its antagonism with the planets, which would likewise become the centre. The collective mass of the planets is the secession of the sun from the centre. The situation of the sun or the degree of its excentricity bears relation to the polar force of the planets. The form, under which the solar system really exists, cannot therefore be the sphere, but the ellipse, i. e. the duplicity of the centre.
232. The sphere is only the type of the universe, of the æther, but not of the solar system nor the Finite. No Finite is absolutely spherical. As the real universe can only exist in a bicentral condition, so is there in this respect also no universal central body. It is there, but under the form of bicentrality, as sun and planet. God only is monocentral. The world is the bicentral God, God the monocentral world, which is the same with monas and dyas. The primary polarity, the dyas, the radiality, the light establishes itself in nature as bicentrality, which is the cosmogenic expression for self-manifestation or self-consciousness. Self-consciousness is a living ellipse.
233. The bicentrality determines the distance of the planets from the sun. If the sun as the active pole be strong or energetic, the planets will occupy a remote situation; if it be feeble or weak, one that is near. The strength of the polar energy depends, however, upon the quantity of the mass. Were the mass of the sun less, all the planets would range nearer to it; were it greater, they would be all driven further off, as electricity repels the pith-balls of elder-wood; more than this the planets are not towards the sun, but even less. The energy of the solar polarization depends not merely upon its magnitude, but also upon the velocity of rotation, which harmonizes with the former; the latter, however, depends upon the original velocity of rotation of the æther. The velocity of the rotation of æther being assumed as definite, that of the sun must be definite also, and with this everything accords.
234. The circumvolution of the planets around the sun is a polar process of attraction and repulsion, by virtue of the primary law in the solar system, by virtue of the light. The planet then can only be repelled in the neighbourhood of the sun from the sun, when it has the same solar pole in itself, when it has become positive; and can only attract it at a distance from the sun, when it has received the opposite pole to the sun, or has become negative.
235. This is only conceivable in that the planet, while it draws nearer to the sun, extinguishes in itself by its own power the negative pole, and produces on the contrary the positive pole, or becomes a sun; and that, as it removes itself from the sun, it again extinguishes the positive solar pole, and generates the negative planetary pole within itself. This substantial production of alternating poles upon the planet takes place through the diversity of its surface as water and land, through the oblique position of its axis, whereby summer and winter are produced, through the processes, or through the life that is upon it, through the processes of decomposition and combination effected by water, through the revival and death of vegetation, and even the white colour of snow. The planet discharges its pole in the neighbourhood of the sun, like a cork pellet, and reloads of itself at a distance from the sun; and thus oscillates to and fro, like the hammer in an electrical bell. The course of the planets takes place with the greatest ease. It is everywhere no force of weight, of impulse, but of the easiest self-motion. The planet revolves by its own force to and from the sun, like the blood circulates to and from the heart.
236. The planet cannot, however, be diverted from its course, because the other heavenly bodies, probably the comets, do not act mechanically but only polarly upon it. By means of this polarity they maintain themselves always at a distance, even as the sun keeps itself at a distance from the planets. In addition to this, the polar tension between the comet and the sun is stronger than between the comet and the planets. The perturbations of the planets depend upon their polar relations to each other. Although the planets have a centrifugal tendency, they are not thrown by a prodigious mechanical force in the direction of the tangent, and then drawn back by an attractive force of the sun, that has no import or meaning; but they course in a playful manner round the sun. A theory of attraction of this kind has no physical sense. Such an attraction is a Qualitas occulta, an angel which flies before the planets. It does not create the world by impulses and strokes, but only by vivification.
237. Were the planet dead, it could not be attracted or repelled by the sun; it would have from the very beginning always maintained a similar pole in itself, and it could therefore only move in a circular manner around the sun. The circular motion or course around the sun is not generally conditioned by the polarity of the planets, but depends upon the primary rotation. Proportionably to the mutual interchange of polar operation between the sun and planet, the latter would only approach the sun in the line of the apsides, and thus remove from it; but by the primary rotation it is conducted around it. The elliptical path is consequently the result of rotation and of the polar or linear interchange of operation between the two heavenly bodies.
238. The moon would keep a wholly circular path around the sun, if it were not disturbed by the earth, were it not through the difference of the earth's poles to passively retain also different polarities; for the moon is in itself dead.
239. The moon is not attracted more forcibly by the earth than the sun; and therefore it remains not by the earth. The sun exercises more polar action, more photal action upon it than the earth, and yet it falls not into the sun, for the very same reason that the earth itself does not fall in. The moon is forsooth to be regarded as itself a planet with a definite charge of electricity, which is always equably maintained by light; as such it rotates circularly about the sun. But it rotates in the same path wherein the earth rotates; therefore the latter operates upon it and draws it in its strange serpentine line around the sun.
240. The more living a planet is, by so much the more excentric is its path, because it enters into great opposition with the light.
241. If polarization by light be the cause of the attraction and repulsion of the planets from the sun, so is it also the cause of the distance of the planetary masses generally. The individual distance of the several planets is determined by the energy of their own polar excitation. Planets, which possess a strong polar energy, must range further than the others from the sun. This polar energy is, however, dependent upon the magnitude and density of the mass, upon the level state or unevenness of the surface, upon the capacity for heat, upon the quantity of water, upon the position of the axis in regard to the path, upon the possible processes of vegetation; it is thus not to be determined. Before vegetation was upon the earth, there were other processes, e. g. the aqueous precipitations, that changed the polarity; so that the path might formerly have been different to what it subsequently was or is now.
242. Planets are consequently those bodies which possess in themselves a peculiar degree of polarity and a substantial change of the same, whereby their individual distance and the nature of their paths are determined.
COMETS.
243. The comets are heavenly bodies, devoid of a persistent grade of polarity, and without any substantial change in the same. They obtain their polarity solely from the sun, like the cork-pellet from the electrical machine. The comet is therefore repelled as far from the sun as there is still an action between it and the polarity that has been imparted to the comet.
244. At the point where all antagonism between comet and sun ceases, the former must remain stationary, and resolve itself again into æther. This is the case with those comets that never return. These comets are temporal coagulations of æther by light, and thus continued creation.
245. The æther coagulates where the light, already polarized in part by the operations of other heavenly bodies, encounters it. This depends upon fortuitous constellations.
246. These comets originate like the planets; they are æther condensed in the form of an orbitar ring. This dissevered orbitar ring is the tail, which is only a more gaseous æther, through which, or even through the nucleus itself, the stars are seen. The tail follows the comet not really but only ideally. Around the nucleus, so far as it is prolonged, the light concentrates the æther. New æther is constantly emitting light, while that which was before illuminating as tail again becomes dark and again sinks into a state of indifference. The tail is only an optical spectrum. For how can the tail be really a part of the comet, since it is always turned backwards from the sun, since it therefore follows and precedes the nucleus? The nucleus is only the lamp which kindles the æther surrounding it for some time. The light suffers a modification through the nucleus; it therefore polarizes only the æther behind it. The tail is the evident example of what is antecedent in the origin of the heavenly bodies. It is the heavenly body conceived in the act of becoming, but unto which polarization is wanting; it cannot therefore concentrate itself, but again dissolves when the nucleus is gone. Every heavenly body is a mass of æther in the world-space, which is materialized by light, and separated out of its indifference into difference, into more solid masses. Finally, the tail becomes dense æther, a nucleus.
247. These comets are thus true meteors; as they originate, so originate the globes of fire, by polarization occurring in the atmosphere, or even too above the limits of the atmosphere.
248. Meteoric stones are terrestrial comets. The opinion that they come from the moon has no foundation. There is probably as little metal as water upon the moon.
249. Returning comets are probably polarized by two suns.
250. A comet can never come into collision with a planet; the fear of such an event is equally absurd with the hypothesis, that a comet had produced the deluge or displaced the earth's axis.
251. Two planets also can never come into mutual collision, not even those that have been recently discovered, although their paths intersect each other.
252. The planets are returning comets, which, however, before they have come to the second sun, have produced within themselves the opposite pole to the sun. What happens to the comets through the influence of the second sun, the planets effect of themselves.
B.—STÖCHIOGENY.
CONDENSATION.
253. Through its separation into polar masses the æther becomes condensed, heavy and material.
254. This condensation is the result of the fixation of a definite pole on a definite mass of æther. The essence of the æther consists in its having no fixed pole, but that all the poles oscillate to and fro with the greatest facility from one particle of æther to the other. This is what is meant by indifference, by equivalency of poles; no part of the æther differs from another, because none retains permanently a definite pole, but each of them all the poles. The formation of the heavenly bodies is none other than an union of poles to a definite mass of æther.
255. A mass of æther with a fixed pole is a dense matter; such a mass of æther I call terrestrial matter, but the æther itself the cosmic. Sun and planet must be terrestrial matters, for the essence of both consists in the difference of their poles.
256. The cause of the fixation of poles resides in light.
257. The heavenly bodies go to ruin by removal of the fixation of the pole abiding on the mass, substratum or substance, not by mechanical demolition. The destruction of the heavenly bodies is a retrogression of their mass into æther by means of fire. Heat does not drive the bodies, after the manner of a wedge, from each other, but only suppresses their polarity, and then the atoms must withdraw from each other. Heat depends only on the destruction of poles, not upon extension. The heavenly bodies are ruined in the same way that they have originated, namely, through the primary act in its retrogression.
258. It is only the pole, no other concealed property, which maintains the being of the mass. The mass is not a terrestrial mass subsisting simply by its own rest. Nothing material is the cause of the form of matter, but the Spiritual. Matter has therefore no quality, no consistence of itself, but is nothing, is æther. Mass cannot supplant mass, nor mechanism destroy anything material. The destruction must proceed from within.
259. The fixation of poles in the substance is the impenetrability of matter. It is only the spirit in matter which renders this impenetrable, not the mass itself.
260. The æther is penetrable, and therefore also penetrating. Heat is penetrating; light, as æther in a state of tension, is only partially penetrating.
261. All the diversity of matter depends upon the fixation of poles in the substance. For there is no diversity in the universe without poles, without binary division. The substance always remains the same, it is only the poles that change. The substance is the Indestructible, the Persistent, the æther, the nothing.
262. The fixation is the perquisite, but the necessary one, of the substance. The diversity of things resides only in the perquisite. In the substance all are alike. There is only one substance, only one essence.
ELEMENTAL BODIES. (How many kinds of Æther-condensations may exist?)
263. The æther has three forms, and can therefore condense itself after a ternary manner, or in other words, there can be only three kinds of fixations of poles.
264. The condensations of the several forms of æther must be simple matters or Elemental bodies, as they are called.
265. There can therefore be only three simple bodies, a body of gravity = 0, one of light = +, and one of heat = -.
266. If the heat of the æther becomes fixed, the rarest, most mobile and lightest body must originate. The body of heat is Hydrogen.
267. If the light of the æther becomes fixed, a less dense, and thus a less heavy matter, must originate, and one whose atoms are moveable against each other. The body of light must be the most active in nature; it must determine the changes of all other elemental bodies. The body of light is Oxygen.
268. If the gravity of the æther become fixed, the greatest condensation must originate. The densest matter is necessarily the heaviest. The dense matter must be immoveable in its atoms, i. e. endowed with form. The body of gravity is Carbon (as basis of the metals).
269. Besides these 3 elemental bodies, hydrogen, oxygen and carbon, there can be no other simple bodies. All other bodies must be only different degrees of fixation of the above-mentioned bodies, or combinations of the same. Different degrees of carbon are without doubt the metals. Different degrees of oxygen are probably chlorine, iodine, bromine. Different degrees of hydrogen are probably sulphur. Nitrogen is probably peroxydised hydrogen, or an oxyd of hydrogen; this is indicated by its medium weight, and its perfectly azotic character.
ELEMENTS.
270. Simple bodies cannot exist for themselves, for there can nowhere be an æther, which merely belongs to gravity, or merely to light or to heat.
271. An elemental body is never a Total, but invariably a Polar, a something not whole, properly a half or rather but a third essence, a fraction. One-sidedness is therefore the character of the elemental body.
272. One pole is nowhere produced, but all are invariably present together. The terrestrial matter completed must therefore consist of the three primary bodies, but occurring in diverse proportions. As light and heat can never subsist without the substance of the æther, so also can no body of light and no body of heat subsist per se without the body of gravity or carbon, and vice versâ. The general materials of nature are therefore combinations of the three primary bodies.
273. The æther is the totality of the primary bodies in equal proportion, where thus no pole is fixed, but all are comprehended in fixation, i. e. in constant change.
274. All other general matters must be also combinations of the three primary bodies, but with different fixation, or in unequal proportion. There can consequently be only four general matters.
275. The first general matters are called Elements. There are only four elements, one general and three particular.
| 1. | Element, | Fire. |
| 2. | - - - - | Heat. |
| 3. | - - - - | Light. |
| 4. | - - - - | Gravity. |
276. Each element is a total representation of the æther.
277. An element is not that which is chemically inseparable, but it is only the Whole, which has first originated. But the elemental bodies are chemically non-decomposible, because they are already separate, being moieties or fractions.
278. The heat element is the hydrogen element—Air.
279. The light element is the oxygen element—Water.
280. The gravity element is the carbon element—Earth.
281. In each element, beside the basic or combustible elemental body, there is also oxygen; for they are verily naught else than the æther fixed by light, æther that has become heavy by means of light.
AIR.
282. The first condensation of the æther must be that which corresponds to its condition as heat. This ele-
ment, as being that in which the atoms have no connexion, must be therefore the lightest and rarest. In this element the poles must be fixed in the least degree, and therefore change with the slightest operation. This element is therefore moveable in all directions, is the most unstable, and in form most similar to the æther.
283. Active freedom from form predominates in it, i. e. its atoms are constantly striving to withdraw from each other, or the mass to extend. This endeavour is called elasticity. Elasticity is none other than the endeavour to become a greatest or interminable globe. The terrestrial matter, with this striving towards an universal globe, is called gas.
284. The formless internally moveable element, constantly extending itself and changing its pole, is the Air.
285. The air is the first terrestrial element, the first degree of ætherial condensation associated with the feeblest fixation of poles, the constant change of which is manifested in its electric relations. It corresponds in every respect, in mobility, extension, general penetration, &c., to heat. The air consists of a preponderance of the body of heat or hydrogen (oxydulated as nitrogen in the proportion of 79 by volume), and of a fair quantity of the body of light or oxygen (21); also of a very small amount of the body of gravity or carbon, as evidenced in the carbonic acid.
286. The air is a maximum of air, a medium of water, and a minimum of earth.
287. As heat is not merely indifferent æther, nor merely its motion or extension, but is the æther moved by the polarity of light, so is the hydrogen gas in the air not in a pure state, but converted by oxygen into nitrogen. The air is in every respect therefore an element that has undergone combustion, an oxyd of hydrogen and carbon.
288. The oxygen is that which is everywhere active, exciting, moving, and vivifying everything; it is the light in the Terrestrial. The nitrogen is inert, as it were mortified, and therefore mortifying or causing death; the former the +, the latter the-. The greatest activity among all terrestrial elements resides in the air, since all polarizations issue from it.
289. The changes in the air are accompanied by constant changes of temperature, for they are verily in themselves nothing else than changes of caloric-æther.
290. All subsequent elements must originate from or be condensations of air, even as this has arisen out of, and been a condensation of, the æther.
291. Condensations, however, are fixations of poles; the other elements differ therefore only from air by having other poles fixed in them.
292. Since the poles are at the same time fixed more internally on these elements, they can no longer have the gaseous form.
293. They must on this account contain more bulk and be therefore heavier.
WATER.
294. If the polarity of light becomes fixed in a certain quantity of the mass of æther, or the oxygen of the air obtains the preponderance, a less changing element originates possessing a more definite character, and the atoms of which adhere more strongly to each other than those of air.
295. This element has, in addition to the gaseous effort towards a general globe or periphery, the effort at the same time also to a centre, or to an individual globe. It is therefore neither elastic or gaseous. The effort of a mass to a special and general globe is a conflict betwixt form and want of form. This effort is called fluidity.
296. The fluid element must contain a preponderance of oxygen (85), and less hydrogen (15). There is also some carbon present in it. The carbon of water is to be sought in the slime of the sea, for the sea, and not fresh water, is the primary water.
297. The fluid element oxygen is the Water. Water in large as well as in small quantities, seeks to represent the globe, namely, to form drops. It possesses therefore the effort unto form, while it is always relapsing into formlessness. This oscillation between form and formlessness is the conception of fluidity, which is therefore essentially different from that of gasidity; it might be said that the latter were the arithmetic or constant change of numbers; but that fluidity were the combination of arithmetic with geometry.
298. If the essence of water consists in the contest between form and formlessness, it must thus seek to produce fluidity everywhere. Liquefaction is, however, called solution, namely, globules are formed, both on a large and small scale. The function of water is therefore solution. It dissolves the air, (imbibes it) like the earth.
299. Water is more difficult to analyze than air, because its poles are more fixed.
300. In the analysis of water, the body of heat emerges in a pure state as hydrogen, because the antagonism here subsists in an abrupt manner; in the air it is constantly changing. Hydrogen is therefore nitrogen wholly deoxydised.
301. If water is the oxygen-element, so is it the light-element or condensed light-æther; thus it is as little something absolutely new as the air.
302. Terrestrial life originates out of water, as does the cosmic life out of light. All form originates from water; for it is the general fluid, or that which strives towards form. Without water, there would be no life, no Solid and no Organic.
EARTH.
303. If the gravity of æther condenses itself, or the action of gravity be fixed in a quantity of æther, there originates immobility of the atoms, i. e. an effort upon their part towards a single direction, namely, simply towards the centre. The effort towards a single direction or towards the centre, is cohesion or rigidity.
304. The mass with fixed gravity is carbon. If therefore the carbonic acid of air, or the carbon of water, obtain the preponderance over the other elemental bodies, there thus originates the rigid centripetal element.
305. The heavy, rigid, carbon-element is the Earth. The earth is neither gaseous nor fluid. The earth contains a preponderance of carbon, with a tolerable quantity of oxygen, and a slight amount of hydrogen and nitrogen. The earth is an oxyd of carbon.
306. If fire is indicated by + 0-, the air then corresponds to the-, the water to +, the earth to the 0. The earth is therefore the Identical, water the Indifferent, air the Different; or the first the centre, the second the radius, the last the periphery of the general globe or of fire. The earth is naught but an accumulation of points. If radii occur in it, it happens only because all points have not place in the middle point.
307. The capacity for analysis of the elements comports with the serial order of their origin. The air is most easily analysed, the water with difficulty, the earth scarcely or not at all. The æther is occupied in eternal analysis, and therefore appears only when it is momentarily polarized unto light or heat, i. e. obtains the disposition to fixation.
308. If air represent arithmetic, so does earth the geometry or universality of forms. Water is the synthesis of both, the algebra; æther the analysis.
309. The geometrical figures of the earthy are called crystals; the geometry of the earth is Crystallography.
310. In the creation the three primary ideas attained only by degrees to reality. First of all the trias becomes real in the air, then the dyas in water, and lastly the monas in the earth. The creation of the elements is none other than a representation of the three divine ideas in a finite sphere. Creation is a process of formation of the nothing.
311. Creation ceases with the production of the fixed or stable form; for all ideas have parted from each other, and settled down into the most Individual, with which separation all further formation of new matters necessarily ceases. Creation is a constant analysis of the æther, of air, and finally, of water.
312. The element that is correspondent to gravity necessarily occupies the centre upon the planet. It is surrounded by the element corresponding to light, the water, like the centre is by the radii; both are enveloped by the heat-element or air, which forms the periphery of the globe, the integument of the planet.
313. The forms of the elements are the following; water is spherical in its greatest as well as least parts; for it is the point merging out of itself, and can therefore nowhere acquire form. The earth is everywhere nothing but point; it is therefore concrete, and every part self-subsistent or individual, while in water no part subsists for itself, but at every opportunity is confluent with the other, and therefore arrives nowhere at individuality. Finally, air is the eternal flight of the smallest parts to the periphery. In the earth the Finite or Singular is for itself; in the water it is so only through the Whole; in the air it is not indeed for itself, but is there only the Whole without individualized parts.
314. The world is twofold, an ætherial and a terrestrial; both are transcripts or copies of each other, and both ultimately of God. The terrestrial world has originated out of the æther; it is therefore further removed from God than the æther; this is the discharged, purified Terrestrial.
315. God is a threefold Trinity; at first the Eternal, then the Ætherial, and finally the Terrestrial, where it is completely divided.
316. The holy primary number is 3; the second is 9. The æther is 1 in 3; the other elements are simply the 3 of the æther, together 4. 2 × 3, however, or 6, lies at the bottom of this 4. The symbolic numbers are consequently 1, 3, 4, 6, 9, which fundamentally are one and the same, but in different combinations. With this, however, all formation does not yet terminate; to the 4 elements is added the vegetable and animal kingdom. The number of the days of creation is 6.
C.—STÖCHIOLOGY.
FUNCTIONS OF THE ELEMENTS.
1. Functions of the Æther.
317. The spiritual activity of æther manifests itself as a process of combustion, which appears as fire. The combination of the substance with light and heat is fire; the elements have therefore originated by a process of combustion. All matter has undergone combustion, and indeed æther has been submitted to the same process. The process of fixation of the æther or the process of condensation, is consequently a process of combustion.
318. Each heavenly body has originally burnt, was nothing but fire; the Vulcanic has preceded the Neptunian agency. It was, however, the primary process of combustion, through which the at present combustible matters first originated. The present volcanoes must not be regarded as synonymous with the primary combustion. There it was not Vesuvii that burnt, but æther.
319. What has not been burnt upon the planet, is again reduced. A something that has not originally suffered combustion is a contradiction. The metal is therefore not the Original, as for obvious reasons also, the solid cannot proceed directly out of the æther, without having been first gaseous and fluid. The processes of combustion upon the planet are all secondary, are imitations of the primary combustion in matter, in the elements. Fire consists of the combinations of the three activities, gravity, light, and heat, which are now to be separately considered.
a. GRAVITY.
320. The functions of gravity are exhibited principally in the motion of the heavenly bodies, and are so completely unfolded in works upon Physics and Astronomy, that they may here be passed over in silence.
b. LIGHT.
321. The æther and the terrestrial matter are correlative, like Higher and Lower, unity and multiplicity, and therefore stand in the same antagonism with each other, as the air with the two inferior elements. The æther is constantly seeking to convert the matter into itself, to render it indifferent by depolarization, this, however, to condense it. Matter is only condensed æther. This condensation proceeds, however, from the polarization of light, and it is consequently the activity of light by which the æther hardens into matter.
322. The activity of the æther or the light dies or becomes obscured in matter. The next obscuration of light, or its immediate transition into matter is the polar primary body, oxygen. Oxygen is the corporeal light. It is the spirit of light to posit every thing with an internal polarity, to convert everything into oxygen, to render everywhere free the oxygen pole; for the process of fixation can only happen through activity = light, and fixation is a production of primary bodies.
323. Light is the manifestation of positive tension, of the tension of oxygen. When this reaches its maximum, light issues forth. This is evident upon the planet. Every generation of the Similar takes place through the similar principles; the cosmic generation of light must be therefore imparted also by positive tension, by that of oxygen. No reference has been here made to the negative relation of oxygen in electrical tension; it does not come under the denomination.
324. The sun is the body of oxygen, the water in the world-space; the planet, however, is the basic body, the earth in world-space. The æther is diffused between the two as the air of heaven. The sun appears to have only the density of water; for it is four times less dense than the earth, and is thus pretty nearly in the condition of water.
325. The sun must be water, even because it is a body of oxygen. It must be denser than water, because it is in the centre, is central water.
326. It gives out light only, because it is water; for as such it is in eternal motion.
327. The solar water is moved by the planets, like ebb and flow. At every point of the sun opposite to which a planet stands, there is flow; there the illumination is stronger, in other situations weaker. There must be several seas of light upon the sun, as many as there are planets placed opposite to it. There is nowhere a perfectly quiescent point in the sun; therefore it is nowhere wholly solid.
328. The shining is an ebb and flow of the sun. Query Do not the spots and flashes of the sun depend upon this? The ebb and flow also of the sea gives out light; every motion in water shines. The sun does not simply shine by external motion, but because it is by this motion polarized unto the Innermost. It is a true gelatinous animal, a body trembling through its whole mass, and thereupon phosphorescent.
329. The sun is not inhabited. It has no firm ground.
330. The contest of the primary principles of the elemental bodies upon the planet appears as light.
331. Light is now more closely characterized. It is no longer merely the tension of æther generally, but tension of material elemental bodies. Thereby the light has been torn from heaven and given to the earth. Light has a chemical relation, and admits therefore of comparison with terrestrial matters.
332. Through light the negative, its opposite or the basic, pole has been evoked in matter. The sun is self-posited as oxygen against the planet as Azotic or phlogiston; hydrogen and carbon. Light therefore deoxydises the bodies; it converts them into itself, into a polar principle. Acids placed in the light become deoxydised; nitric acid, muriate of silver. Oxygen is developed in light out of water. In like manner the constituent parts of the air continue separated only through light.
INFLEXION.
333. The light tends from the sun to the earth, not merely because the polarization in accordance with its nature streams forth from the centre to the periphery, because the light is radiality; but because the earth is the basic pole of the sun. It is thus polarity, and not simply the straight line, which light obeys. Light tends to the centre of the earth, because between this and the sun the tension oscillates. The line of tension is only between the two centres.
334. In whatever direction light may fall upon the earth, it must strive towards the middle point. Those bodies that have in themselves the earthy nature, attract the light, not by virtue of an hidden quality, but out of the antagonism with the sun; now it may proceed either from greater density or from true basic import.
335. Rays of light, which pass close to the earth, as rays of tension between the sun and another star, become, from the polarity of the earth being stronger than that of the star, diverted from their straight direction and drawn towards the middle point. This diversion of light from its direct course is called Inflexion.
336. It is chiefly basic bodies that inflect the light towards themselves. No such body has an infinite shadow. In other respects, all bodies inflect because they are much denser than light.
TRANSLUCENCY AND REFRACTION.
337. Light, as an Ætherial, permeates matter, and must on that very account pass toward the middle point of the earth, because it is virtually none other than the tension of both middle points, the earth and the sun. Originally therefore the light must have gone through the earth.
338. This permeation is not, however, mechanical but dynamic, and is indeed necessarily a propagation of the tension of æther through the matter.
339. Matter is susceptible of the same polarization of which the æther is susceptible, because it is on no account different from the æther; the polarization only takes place more slowly.
340. The transmission of light is called Translucency.
341. The æther is transparent, because it is everywhere the propagation of the tension of light, because it is itself, or becomes, light everywhere. Bodies can also be transparent, only in so far as they are the light itself, i. e. in so far as the same polarization can be excited in them which is constantly excited in æther by the sun. But this is not only possible, but necessary; for matter is surely the æther itself, only condensed. The polarity æther must therefore be capable also of being excited in the condensed æther, although in a much less degree. The transparency of matter is a tension of æther continually ringing through matter. The whole universe originally was transparent; it has only originated through tension of light.
342. Matter is a tension of light that has become central. This continuous tension of light in matter in relation to the centre, and thus with curvation, is called Refraction.
343. All transparent bodies must refract light. The bodies are, however, denser than the æther; therefore the light, which passes from a rarer into a denser medium, must be refracted towards the centre (plummet of incidence), and in the reverse case turned from it.
344. Materiality is not the only determinant of refraction, but also the density of the element, the earth refracting light more than water, and this more than air.
345. The density also is not the only determinant, but the quality also of the matter; the Basic or Planetary must refract more than the Oxygenic or Solar.
346. As translucency is not a dead transmission of light, but a continued propagation of tension; so must it be viewed as a process of light in matter, but one excited from without. Translucency is a co-illumination, like the concord of equally attuned instruments.
347. Co-illuminating bodies are thus analogous still to the æther. If there are non-transparent bodies, they can only be found in the earth-element, which, being furthest removed from the æther, has perfected itself independently, and they must indeed be wholly deoxydised.
348. The co-illumination of bodies or their transparency is an effort of deoxydation. Bodies that cannot at all be deoxydised are non-transparent.
REFLEXION.
349. Transparency belongs only to those bodies which have in themselves a twofold character. It will be shown that the metals are absolutely identical matters, and therefore non-transparent. The metals are the only non-transparent bodies. Metaleity = non-transparency.
350. The light falls upon a non-transparent only through a transparent body, and thus one in which the tension of light propagates itself. This co-illumination of the matter placed in front of the non-transparent body cannot cease to co-illuminate; the tension must thus abide in it, and turn back from the non-transparent body, in a straight direction if the tension fell direct upon it, at a certain angle, if obliquely. This phenomenon is called Reflexion.
351. Reflexion is no repulsion of light, but only its tension continued into the medium, in which the tension has been.
352. A non-transparent body indicates nothing for the tension of light but the limit of the co-illuminating matter; it does not at all operate itself upon the light, it is as it were a void space.
353. Transparent bodies also reflect partly, because they are only relative æther, because they only co-illuminate, are not themselves tensed; or because the basis in all is the metal. Every other medium is, however, an æther differently fixed; in every one therefore the tension has been changed; every medium is thus a limit for the tension, and therefore the transparent bodies also reflect. Since the tension becomes altered, when it passes into another medium, it always remains by preference in the neutral medium; therefore reflexion originates also by the air, when the light passes out of glass very obliquely into it.
Operation of the terrestrial Elements upon Light.
DECOMPOSITION OF LIGHT—COLOURS.
354. It results from all this, that light cannot enter unchanged into mutual operation with matter. The tension of æther changes itself in matter. This change of light through the influence of matter is a debilitation of the tension of æther and lastly its complete cessation. There can be therefore no absolutely transparent matter; the æther only is this absolutely transparent matter. The denser a material is, by so much the more will it be capable of suppressing in itself the tension of light. The most transparent bodies must also become with a greater density adiaphanous or opaque, because the Metallic increases in them.
355. This suppression or expiration of the tension of light in bodies has received, as likewise proceeding from the mechanical theory of light, the name of absorption. The absorption is not a mechanical adherence of the particles of light in the pores of bodies. There are no pores for light, and this requires none.
356. The absorption or decrescence of light is a retrogression of light into the indifference of æther, into darkness. Light in conflict with matter does not continue light, but becomes a mean condition between light and darkness.
357. The substratum of light, the æther, has two extreme conditions, and only two, the tensed and the non-tensed; the one is the light, the other the dark. Between the two, however, are the mediate conditions of twilight or "clare-obscure." The light æther emits rays, the dark does not; the mediate conditions are half the two. The light condition is the clear unsullied light, the absolute translucency; the darkness is the absolute want of translucency; the mediate members are offuscated light, mediate tensions of æther.
358. The mean tension of æther, or light mingled with darkness, is called Colour. Colour is a finite, fixed light, the actual transmission of light into matter.
359. No matter can be uncoloured. An uncoloured matter is a nonentity.
360. Since matter is rigidified light, even so must it be posited in reference to colour, like light. Pure light materially substantiated or posited is White. The untensed æther materially posited is Black.
361. The mediate tensions of æther, or the mixture of Light and Dark, are mean conditions of White and Black, mixtures of the two extremes or androgynisms of White and Black. If we do not call White and Black colours, colours are then partial positions of light in matter, or in the dark.
362. Colour originates only in the confinity of Light and Dark, or in the limit between White and Black. They are therefore microscopic.
363. Darkness is the cause of colours.
364. There is nothing visible but colour, but the coloured matter. The Non-corporeal itself is invisible. Darkness is the cause of all visibility. Were there no darkness, there would be no world for the eye. Colours are only illuminated darkness.
365. In the limit between Light and Dark there is neither White nor Black, but their possible mediate conditions, or the proper colours, the material tensions of æther. If the shadow-line of light be viewed under a magnifying glass, colours will be seen to reside in it. They are invisible only before on account of their minuteness. The prism and the lens do nothing else than magnify the shadow-line of light. They only show the colours that already exist therein, but do not create them.
366. There is properly only one colour between White and Black; it is the transmission of light into matter generally. If we look through a prism with the refracting angle presented downwards, at an horizontal fissure in the shutter of a dark chamber, the red colour is then exhibited upon the upper and lower borders of the spectrum so formed within the eye; thus, in both instances, where the Dark is above and the White beneath, as also where the latter is above and the former beneath, as on the inferior border of the opening. Upon the lower border of the upper Red, and thus in the Clare, Yellow appears, which is consequently a mixture of Red and White, as seen through the thinner part of the prism. Yellow is thus brighter Red. Upon the upper border of the lower Red, thus also in the Clare, Blue appears, which is consequently a mixture also of Red and White, but the latter seen through the thicker part of the prism. Blue is thus offuscated Red. If Yellow and Blue be mixed, Green then originates. There can be therefore only four colours, whereof the Red is a mixture of Black and White, Yellow of Red and White, Blue of Red and Black, Green of Blue and Yellow. The first three are simple or mixed colours, the last a compound colour or a medley. These colours are parallel to the gradations in nature, or the latter are none other than the materializations of colours or the gradations of light. All other colours must be contained in the Red; it must serve as the basis or groundwork of all; it must be the noblest, most total, fullest and purest colour. This colour is the first position of the æther as matter, and thus of fire. Fire-colour is the first-born, the noblest, highest, fullest, purest; it is the ætherial, cosmic colour. In fire the light is offuscated by gravity, and thereby coloured.
367. The light is not, however, perfected by its position as fire, but is posited also terrestrially. There are therefore terrestrial colours also.
368. There can be only three terrestrial colours, neither more nor less; for there are only three different material or offuscated positions of light.
369. The first terrestrial offuscation of light is the air. The colour of the air is thus second in the rank of colours. As the fire-colour plays the chief part in the cosmic and in all colours, so does the air-colour among the terrestrial. It is the highest colour of the planet.
370. The second offuscation of light is water. The colour of water is the third colour.
371. The third offuscation of light is the earth; and this colour is the last, the most ignoble. The colours part into two series, the cosmic or solar, and the terrestrial or planetary. The cosmic is the Red. The first terrestrial is Blue. The second is Green. The third is Yellow. Red alone is worth as much as all the three others taken together. It is the identification of all numbers. Green is merely their synthesis, the terrestrial, finite totality.
372. The genesis of colours is thus the genesis of the elements, or that of matter. It cannot be otherwise; for the becoming of matter is verily an offuscation of light, a coloration. Colour agrees essentially with the elements, and is itself nothing different from element. Fire is in its essence red, as being the impartient of light and heat; air is in its essence nothing else than the blue æther by virtue of its being gaseous; water is the green æther, earth the yellow. If the æther is tensed, it then becomes red or fire; if it attains its blue stage, it becomes air; at the green stage, water, upon the yellow, earth.
373. The elements are only gradations of light, colours. They have therefore been formed according to the laws of light; for colours are without doubt the legitimate developments of light.
374. Red, as being the solar or fire-colour, ranks parallel with oxygen; the more powerful indeed the combustion, the more powerful is the oxydation, and by so much redder the flame. Matters also become red through oxydation. The Red vanishes lastly into White, and thus the highest oxydation is white.
375. The next interchange of Red is with Blue; it becomes red by oxydation, this again blue by desoxydation, but by excessive alkalization and terrification, yellow. It is Red that imparts oxydation, Blue that resolves it and reduces the poles to indifference.
376. From the same cause Red warms, but Blue on the contrary does not. The calefaction given out in prismatic spectra of colours is an impure work, in which refractions, diversions and convergences of light, as well as demi-foci, cooperate.
377. The sun in the firmament may be viewed as the bright opening in the darkened chamber. Colours are therefore nothing but images of the sun in darkness, self-manifestations of the sun in dark matter. A point of light thrown into darkness is colour. This is the case around the sun, which is therefore surrounded by a hollow globe of colours, by its own refulgence. The rainbow is a ring around the sun consisting of infinite positions of the solar spectra in darkness.
378. The symbolical doctrine of the colours is correct according to the philosophy of nature. Red is fire, love—Father. Blue is air, truth and belief—Son. Green is water, formation, hope—Ghost. These are the three cardinal virtues. Yellow is earth, the Immoveable, Inexorable, falsity the only vice—Satan. There are three virtues, but only one vice. A result obtained by Physio-philosophy, whereof Pneumato-philosophy as yet augurs nothing.
COLOURS AND PLANETS.
379. Every condensation of æther by light is consequently a production of colour, and inversely, every production of colour is a condensation of the æther. The laws of coloration run parallel with those of materialization, or, what is more, are the same. The planets are thus produced according to the laws which light exercises in the production of colours.
380. There are as many productions of heavenly bodies as there are of colours, and thus there are four.
381. The sun is the incorporation of Red or fire, the planets are that of the three terrestrial colours. The comets belong to the kingdom of darkness.
382. The planets are only suns reflected in darkness as in a mirror; they have originally been hollow globes of colour, then orbitar rings of colour (solar rainbows), then points of colour. The planets are coagulated colours, for they are coagulated light. At that very distance from the sun, where light begins to grow dim, where, to speak in the Newtonian sense, it begins to refract, there planetary mass originates. The mass of the planet thus coagulates together around the sun, but not in an uniform manner like a mass of pulp, but in pauses of colours, exactly like a rainbow.
383. These planetary chromatic arcs or bows of colour are related to the sun like the three terrestrial colours to the cosmic, or as the three terrestrial elements to fire. Three planetary productions must have thus formed around the sun, because the light condenses, materializes itself in three moments. Therefore the planets range themselves in groups at three great distances. To the first production belong Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Vesta, Juno, Ceres and Pallas. They are the first digression from Red, the Yellow; the Earthy preponderates in them. They are all placed close together. To the second production belong Jupiter and Saturn; water rules them, and fluctuates visibly upon them; they are the Green. They range at a great distance from the former group. To the third and most remote productions belongs Uranus; it is the Blue, in which the air preponderates. It again ranges at a great distance from the former group. The comets are naught but æther, which is about to become air.
384. The production of the earth-planets or of the first group is dispersed into so many as it is on account of the proximity of the sun, on account of the energy of the rays of light, as well as the import of the Earthy, which exists essentially under many forms. The planetary rings have been arranged like scales behind each other, like clouds through electrical pauses; but these repeat themselves more rapidly, in the neighbourhood of the sun.
c. HEAT.
385. While the æther falls into a state of tension or shines, it is thrown into motion. This motion of æther manifests itself as the conatus or effort to extension. The extension, however, considered as a world-phenomenon, is Heat.
386. Light, when it operates upon terrestrial matter, excites this to special polarization, whereby the Ætherial that is in it is set in motion, i. e. heat is generated.
387. Light never moves directly the mass itself, but only the Ætherial that is in it. Through this motion of the æther it becomes separated from matter; and this separation is manifested as free heat.
388. Heat is not matter itself any more than light is, but it is only the act of motion in the primary matter. In heat, as well as in light, there certainly resides a material substratum; yet this substratum does not give out heat and light; but the motion only of the substratum gives out heat, and the tension only of the substratum light. There is no body of heat; hydrogen is the body of heat, just as oxygen may be called the body of fire.
389. Heat is real space; into it all forms have been resolved, as all materiality has been resolved into gravity, and all activity, all polarity into light. Heat is the universal form, consequently the want of form.
390. Light properly develops heat out of matter through separation of the fixed poles from the substance, whereby the latter again passes over into æther.
391. The development of heat in a body is not an extrusion of a matter adherent, and as it were foreign, to it; but an ascent of the matter itself into heat. The matter does not develop, or give out heat, but becomes heat, namely æther.
392. The loss which a body sustains by the radiation of heat is as slight as the æther is subtile or rare; thus it is infinitely small, where the æther is infinitely light. We cannot speak of the loss of matter, while it is hot; although a true loss is present, if the point in question be philosophically regarded, it can come, however, as little under consideration as the weight of the æther.
393. The fusion of bodies is a diminution of the fixity of their poles, their further evaporation, and thus an approximation to indifference or the apolarity of æther. Heat is the actual retrogression of matter into æther; light is only the efficient of this transition.
394. As heat becomes originally excited, so must it be always excited; two causes for one effect are impossible. The excitation of heat by oxydation takes place in the same way as by light, namely by polarization and separation therefore of the Indifferent. The generation of heat by chemical processes is based upon the same principle. Lastly, the generation also of heat by compression and simple friction is wholly similar to that which is caused by light. In every case they are only polar, and by no means mechanical operations upon matter, whereby the fixity of the poles becomes changed.
395. It is not a change of cohesion, which the friction mechanically effects, but the act is purely dynamical. The essence of friction consists in the constant renewal of polar change, because thereby an infinite number of projecting points or apices are alternately brought into contact. There is verily no smooth body.
396. Heat is the transition of light unto darkness; for it is indifferent æther, only moved. Colours are thus also a conflict of light with heat, and out of this conflict issues the most beautiful, the highest colour, the Red of fire. In fire, the contest between light and darkness has risen to the highest pitch; the æther therefore is also moved to the greatest degree, becomes hot. If the indifference becomes the maximum, the vital tension then relaxes, the fire is extinguished; finally motion ceases, it is cold and dark.
397. In matter also light and heat operate against each other. Light deoxydizes, heat oxydizes. If light appears to oxydize, it is only by evoking heat.
398. Heat is the function of expansion for matter. Every body has a definite degree or amount of expansion, therefore a definite fixity of æther; this æther is latent heat.
399. Heat operates spherically in matter or in all directions, not in the linear direction like light. The propagation of heat can only take place slowly, because it is not a polar action, but only the result of such an one, only motion. Heat does not penetrate bodies mechanically, but dynamically like light, yet without decomposing them, as light does.
400. Heat is related as indifferent æther to the matter as to a Polar. This relation imparts the process of conduction. Light, however, is itself polar and disturbs matter, while it passes through it.
401. With the exception of their cohesion matters are not directly changed by heat.
402. During every process of decomposition, during every process of light heat must be produced, but not light also during every process of heat.
403. Dense materials must conduct heat because they are most opposed to it. It is only the formed element therefore that can possess capacity for conducting heat.
404. Absence of form is the character of isolators of heat, form that of the conductors, apart from every remaining quality. Solid bodies, which easily pass into the formless condition are isolators.
405. The densest bodies among the solids must be the best conductors. Regard may be first paid to the nature of their constituent parts in the sequel of the present section of this work.
406. The conduction of heat is a continuous excitation from one part striving against or resisting the other; the earths (as metals) are the best conductors.
407. Matters, which are images of heat, do not conduct, because they enter only as minimum into conflict with it, and while they expand at once convert themselves into the same. Such is the air. The Heterogeneous only conducts. The heat expands in the air only by continuous motion of the aerial particles. The air is an isolator. Water ranks in the middle between air and earth.
408. With respect also to conduction, light is opposed to heat. Light is conducted by those very bodies, which isolate heat, and isolated, not admitted to permeate or absorbed, by those which conduct heat. The air conducts light, isolates heat; the metal, the earth conducts heat, isolates light; water holds a mediate relation towards the two, yet towards light that of a conductor, because it is deoxydizable.
409. The conduction of light is likewise a process of deoxydation, or a disintegration of matter. By the conduction of light the bodies are chemically analysed, and finally resolve themselves into their principles; such after all is the case with every glass and crystal. As the process of conduction of light may be called a process of deoxydation, so also may it be called a process of the generation of colour. The conduction is an offuscation of light, a colouring; the deoxydation is a solution of the material bonds, an elevation unto colour.
2. Functions of the Air.
ELECTRICITY.
410. The air is the slightest combination of the primary bodies, and stands in opposition with the two other elements, as more solid combustions. In this antagonism the air lays claim upon the other elements to analyse them; these, however, upon the air, to combine, and undergo more vivid combustion.
411. This antagonism is on a large scale an antagonism of periphery and centre, like the primary antagonism, by which planets and suns have withdrawn from each other. The tension of air with the other elements is called Electricity. The centroperipheric antagonism between the sun and the planet, between light and colour, represented in an elementary manner is electricity.
412. Sun and planet are electrically related to each other, and the circumrotation of the latter may be viewed as conditioned by the change of electrical poles. Colours also are only electrical productions. Light itself is similar to an electrical tension of the æther.
413. Electricity is an action of the periphery or limit and thus of the surface of the globe. The surface of the globe is, however, everywhere + - without centre. The principles of electricity are therefore eternally separated without having a middle point, as occurs in magnetism. The electrical poles live in eternal animosity, because they have no point of union. Such is then the essence of electricity. Electricity is therefore only a function of surfaces without any line. It clings only to the upper surface of the bodies, and does not penetrate into their thickness. It is only the tension of the surfaces of bodies against each other, of the apices of divided radii.
414. The air is the periphery, the limit or boundary of the earth. Electricity is therefore the spirit of air. It is in its most active state in that stratum of air which is in contact with the earth, because there the limits are situated. Upon this lightning depends.
415. Electricity, as an aerial function, is terrestrial heat. Both are therefore conducted by the same rigid linear bodies and isolated by the same. The isolation of electricity coalesces with absence of form, or with the transition of denser bodies into air.
416. Electricity is an antagonism between air on the one side and water and earth upon the other. By these therefore two kinds of operation are posited in the air.
417. While electricity is the tension of air with the other elements, it is also the tension of the principles themselves of air. Electricity is a twofold character appertaining to the two principles of air. The tension of æther and of substance, thus the tension of fire repeated upon the two elementary bodies of air, is electricity. Electricity exists under two forms, as the electricity of the substance or body of fire, and as that of the planet. These two conditions are perhaps incorrectly named + E and-E, or positive and negative electricity.
418. The + E is the more energetic, active in itself, polar; it is the electricity of fire represented in oxygen. The-E is the weaker, that which has only been evoked, the basic; it is the electricity of the planet represented in nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon, sulphur. It may be said that-E is related to + E as planet is to sun, as periphery to centre. The sun is + E, the planet-E, the one the electricity of oxygen, the other of hydrogen.
419. These electrical conditions must always be changing in the air, according as the slightest influence is brought to bear upon them from without. The air consists in this change of electrical poles. Were the poles not to change, the air would be a solid element. The earth is an air with fixed electricity, the water with extinguished or neutralized electricity.
420. The twofold character of the aerial principles is increased by every polarizing action from without, and therefore principally by the surface of the earth, which consists of two elements. Were there no surface to the earth, were simply air present, then there would be no electrical change of poles. The surface of the earth itself, however, produces no change of poles in the air, for it remains always neutral; but it becomes unequal or polar from the change wrought upon it by water and earth, by light, by heating and by chemical processes.
421. The air also changes the electricities while it roams over the earth. This wandering motion is a contact of differently polarized tracts of the earth. Every mountain, valley, and river, every meadow is differently polarized; from each the air derives another electricity. Through this ceaseless alternation of polar exchange, its activity becomes so elevated that at last the electricity makes its appearance in a manner cognizable by the senses. The production of electricity by friction admits of a similar explanation. Friction is in miniature, what the sweeping of air is over the earth. Were the earth quite level, and composed of homogeneous matter, the air would not become electric by motion.
422. All terrestrial electricity has been evoked by a change of poles analogous to friction. Through light nothing foreign is posited in the air, any more than by friction, and by both the electricity is attained in a similar dynamical manner.
423. The elements of the air, polarized to the highest degree by electricity, must combine, and this combination is the process of combustion. The final result of electrical tension is combustion of air. It is only, however, the two primary bodies that undergo combustion; the two constituent parts of the air must, therefore, be driven by electricity to their last extreme, even to the most perfect element of fire and the basic or terrestrial substance. The internal combination of both these primary or elemental bodies, or the product of this aerial combustion is next of all water. The termination of electrical tension in the air is rain. All rain is the extinguished function, the dying spirit of air. The two hostile principles are reconciled in water. Water accompanies every process of combustion.
424. By electricity the air was separated into the two inferior elements, into water and earth. At present, where the whole water and the whole earth has been precipitated from air, rain is certainly as a rule only water condensed and held in solution in the air.
425. The nitrogen gas is the residue of the primary rain. After the air has become sea by the combination of oxygen and hydrogen, it no longer creates water out of its own bulk, but now rederives it from the sea, and still but imitates its primary process in rain.
426. Were there merely solid land upon the planet, the oxygen pole would be evoked in the air, and the latter would be precipitated wholly as water. Were there merely water or sea upon the planet, the nitrogen pole would be evoked, and the air be wholly precipitated as earth. But since the two elements are constantly and alternately operating upon the air, so must at one time water, at another earth, be generated and precipitated from it. The earths in the act of falling down, or in precipitation, are the meteoric stones. They are only the after-births of the primary decomposition of air.
427. It can indeed be none other than carbonic acid, which is converted by decomposition into meteoric stones, or at least into the metals and earths which they contain. Sulphur must be regarded as the melting down of carbon and hydrogen. In the upper lighter regions of the air carburetted hydrogen gas may very well be present, and condense itself into meteoric stones.
428. The condensation must take place by means of electricity. The greater condensation or solidification, as well as the calefaction, results indeed first through the fall.
429. Their bursting is only conceivable when some hydrogen gas is in the meteoric stone, which gas, when submitted to the highest degree of heat, becomes finally fulminating gas and bursts the stone.
430. Meteoric stones are children of our planet, and not of the world-space. They are the antagonism of the water-formation or of rain.
431. The falling stars are simply indeed condensed carbon or hydrogen gas, but which by reason of its small mass does not become solid. It is probably converted only into sulphur. Thus falling stars would be the other halves of meteoric stones; the latter consisting of a preponderance of carbon, being therefore earths and metals; the former of a preponderance of hydrogen, being therefore carburetted hydrogen or sulphur. A greater number of meteoric stones must fall over the sea than over the solid land.
3. Function of the Water.
SOLUTION.
432. The function of water is necessarily homologous with the process of combustion, because the main bulk or proportion of water is oxygen. In conformity with its spiritual activity does water seek to convert the two other elements into water, to impart to them its form, to fluidize them. This happens with the air when it has been absorbed; but upon the earth also the water exercises the same action.
433. The function of water is the formation of globes or the Process of Solution; it directs itself chiefly against the solid; for the solid element is the redintegrant factor of water. Solution is a positing of the solid under the internal polar form, but the poles of which have not yet separated. Every solid formation has come out of water, as water has out of air; every new formation must also return out of water, by fluidization, by relaxation of the poles. By solution, solid matters are again reduced to their primary condition, and are then capable of reassuming new fixities. The process of solution is a process of becoming water, not by agglutination, but by liberations of fixity; a Solution in the strongest sense of the term.
434. No process of solution is conceivable without oxydation. The dissolved body, while it obtains the aqueous nature, is taken up in the sense of oxygen. No solution occurs without oxygen, as well as no combustion is possible without water. The solvent character of water is based upon the preponderance of the oxygen over the hydrogen.
435. During every solution the two principles of water enter into a state of tension with each other, as the two aerial principles do in electricity. This tension is established by that which is to undergo solution; for everything so circumstanced is polar towards water. During every solution the oxygen is elevated in its pole, and the hydrogen likewise. If the solution be very heterogeneous, they separate, the water is decomposed. In the pure process of solution the water simply abides in a state of tension; if each aqueous principle is actually and independently self-evolved, chemistry then originates; but of this we shall discourse in the sequel. The process of solution may be characterized as the equilibrium of the process of tension between the object that is to undergo solution and the solvent, and between the two principles of the latter, whereby separation is not thus attained. As electricity finally strikes out into the process of combustion, so does that of solution into the chemical.
436. Solution is in essence like electricity. Solution is an electrical tension between oxygen and carbon; electricity is a process of solution between oxygen and nitrogen, a process of tension without separation of principles. Air and water are in a state of constant tension towards each other; and hence therefore result the constant evaporation and the clouds.
437. What lightning is in the air, namely formation of water, that is chemistry in water. The salt in the sea is what the clouds are in the air. Two electrical clouds are what two salts are in the water. Rain is the imitation of the creation of water. Precipitation of salt is the imitation of the creation of earth.
4. Functions of the Earth.
CRYSTALLIZATION.
438. The earth-element is the highest result of combustion in creation, the highest fixation of æther. The earth is the æther represented as centre in the Material, or it is the identification of all polar binary division in the Terrestrial, independently of oxydation; therefore its parts are motionless, be they dust or compact masses. The earth is the corporeal gravity, the substance as a perfectly simple position without emergence out of itself, the 0, the terrestrial monas. The earth is consequently the heaviest and densest element, and is that which must include the middle point of our own and every planet.
439. In the middle of the planet there is only earth, and nothing else; the middle is not hollow, does not contain any central fire as has been imagined, nor air, and the science of Geogeny will show that no metal also could be contained in the interior of the earth.
440. In the air both material principles are only associated with each other, in water they are mixed, but in the earth identified, blended together.
441. The earth is to the other elements what the sun is to the planets, namely, the basis, the centre and that the mathematical as well as the dynamic centre. That this is the part played by the earth-element is proved not only by its character, but also by its volume. The earth-element exceeds the other elements in mass as much as the sun does the planets; the water is only the vascular system in the flesh of the earth-element; while the air is only the expression of the limit or in other words its integument.
442. Everything therefore that now occurs upon the planet develops itself out of the earth, the water and the air being only the auxiliaries of generation. The Earthy is developed in the water by the air. As creation has been closed with the earth, so may the solid materials, which are now and then found upon the planet apart from the earth, not be products of the first creation, but only developments of the planet when created and cosmically completed.
443. The earth as material gravity is solid. It has, however, originated out of the fluid, therefore by a process of cohesion; this is called the Process of Crystallization.
444. The process of crystallization is perfectly equivalent to the process of fixation of the æther, and is only the termination of the same. As light at any spot in the world-space creates a central point, the nucleus of a comet, around which more of the mass of æther is constantly accumulating till it finally coagulates into the solid condition; so does the process of crystallization evoke some particular spot, point or nucleus in the water, wherein the crystallizing forces are excited, which attract the mass that is susceptible of fixation and fashion it into a crystal. The process of crystallization is a process of fixation, and with it also is furnished the theory of crystallization. The process of crystallization is a process of polarization, and one indeed that proceeds from a centre; or, properly speaking, the point, from which the polarizing process emerges in a fluidity that is fixable or in other words susceptible of crystallization, becomes a central point, a middle point and virtually the middle point of the crystal.
445. The process of polarization does not originate absolutely in the fluid, any more than light has the power of concentrating or crystallizing itself in any given part of the æther; but by an external determination. This is a granule, a projecting point in the vessel or in the hollow of the earth, in which the crystals originate. The crystal never begins in the middle of the fluid, but only on its walls or on the surface. The point of polarization or of crystallization has been granted; now this is polar towards the fluid, and works therefore by polarizing upon it, and through this water also passes over into the crystal, forming what is called water of crystallization.
446. This polarization of the fluid passes in every direction; for every polar point is polar all around. Thus a spherical portion of the fluid is polarized round about the point. The fixable parts are spheroidally attracted and gather together from all sides around the point. For were the polarization not to traverse the whole mass, but only according to individual lines, the crystal must then indeed be jagged or indented.
447. In this manner the crystal would have been a globe, from the fixable particles lying together in distinct points, after the manner of pulp. But this is impossible, because the point of starting or departure is differently polarized to the fluidity, being negative according to observation. Every polar process does not operate in continuity, so that one end of the line should be purely positive, the other, however, purely negative; but every polar line is an infinity of poles, where, however, at one end the positive character only, at the other the negative preponderates. Such a line is e. g. as follows, + - + - + -, which begins with + and ends with-; it therefore has a preponderance of + at one end, of-at the other, and yet is both everywhere. By this infinity of polar change the fixable particles range themselves behind each other, while they separate from each other to an infinitely minute degree; these parts polarized behind each other are lines or fibres. Every crystal must accordingly consist of fibres; none possesses an homogeneous or pultaceous structure.
448. In the crystal one principal direction of polarization originates, which is effected by the antagonism of the point of crystallization with the fluid mass. It gives the direction of the crystal and its energy gives the length. This principal line consists of two poles that recede from each other, and these determine the two ends of the crystal, which are always similar, provided no mechanical obstacle be interposed.
449. From each of the mutually seceding poles lines of polarization issue at definite angles, which (like elliptical radii on the periphery) meet at the sides of the newly produced crystal. Then again between these radii tension arises, so that the fibres become lamellæ. The main line between the two mutually seceding poles is the central line or polar axis of the crystal; the angular lines which determine the position of the lamellæ, are the polar radii. The polar radii determine the nucleus of the crystal and are therefore nuclear lines; the polar axis determines the whole of the crystal, is the crystal, the central-line, and determines the form in general, or what has been called the secondary form.
450. Since all polar activities operate only in a straight line, there can thus be no globular crystal. Water is only susceptible of assuming the globular form upon a large as well as a small scale, because there are no fixed poles in it. The nucleus does not originate previous to the secondary form; since it is verily impossible for the polar rays to originate without a polar axis.
451. There are no actual degradations in the genesis of the crystal; they are only a mathematical expression for the finished form of the crystal.
452. The number of possible or actual nuclei is definite. They are based upon the combination of the laws of the globe with those of the polarity.
453. The simplest angular body must be circumscribed by at least four surfaces, and thus be a tetrahedron.
454. The fundamental nucleus of crystals is, however, the double tetrahedron or the hexahedron, namely the trilateral double-pyramid; for radii do not proceed simply from the point of commencement, but also from the extremities of the axis. When the superior and inferior radii meet, they must form a double-tetrahedron. The disposition to this form has been implanted in all crystals. If the nucleus becomes no such hexahedron, the aberration from, still admits of being referred to, the hexahedron.
455. There is no prismatic nucleus. The columns and parallelopiped nuclei are only mutilations.
456. The tetrahedron is also only a mutilated nucleus. To the essence of a nucleus belong two tetrahedra, with their bases joined to each other.
457. The six-sided double-pyramid is a duplication of the hexahedron. The octahedric nuclei, are things intermediate between the three-and six-sided interruptions of the natural type, like quadrinumeral or tetrapetalous corollæ in flowers.
458. Columns originate only between the two tetrahedra, without doubt owing to deficiency in bulk.
459. If the three-sided double-pyramid be the primary form of crystals, so must the six-sided column with trilateral terminal pyramids be the ultimate form. The rhomboidal-dodecahedron is therefore the most perfect crystal. It is the most perfect representation of the globe in the angular form.
460. The crystal can not commence with the nucleus and then for the first time continue to grow or even change into the perfected crystal, because it becomes only crystal in the conflict of the linear and spherical action. As little as the sun can be produced without the planet, or vice versâ, so little can a nucleus subsist without what is called the external shell or crust. The nucleus is in fact determined by the shell of the crystal, namely by the polar axis. But inversely also the shell is determined by the nucleus, by the polar radii. A nucleus alone would be called a centre of a circle without circumference. Microscopic crystals therefore have at once the same perfected form as the largest in size. A crystal is an entire heavenly body; it is determined by central forces, which have, however, been roused and conducted by dualizing forces, forces of light. Everywhere do we meet with the same laws of the fixation of æther, upon a small as well as large scale.
461. Every solid matter and thus the Terrestrial generally, is crystallized upon a small as well as large scale. There cannot be an atom that were not crystallized, not arranged according to central and polar forces. Every crystal is therefore, and especially by reason of the infinity of the subordinate poles, crystallized again upon an infinitely small scale, or in other words it consists of infinitely numerous crystals. Every lamella or every particle of the lamella of a crystal consists again of crystals. These are what are called the integral parts, properly integral forms of the crystal. They are all probably hexahedra. The metals usually form but very small crystals, probably because the atoms are too heavy and cannot therefore be attracted from any distance.
462. Crystallography has been incorrectly made the principle of division in Mineralogy. A single character can never become a principle of division. If also it were actually true, that the form is always disposed according to the Interior, yet the form could never be the principle of division, but the Interior itself. The form is only the sign, but not the spirit, the essence of the mass.
D.—KINGDOMS OF NATURE.
INDIVIDUALS.
463. All the matters that have hitherto originated have done so only in a general not a particular manner. They are constituent parts of the universe, in which as yet no distinctions reside. So soon as distinctions occur in the elements, they cease to be general matters, and become particular or individual things. The sum of the individuals is the Kingdoms of Nature.
464. The kingdoms of nature are the repetition of the world upon the planet. This repetition in consciousness is Natural History.
465. Acts of the world repeated upon the planet are combinations of the elements. Creation, which has hitherto advanced, now retrogrades, and thus by the combinations of general elements that have been already created.
466. Combinations of the elements, in accordance with the laws of the world, are upon the finite planet particular or individual bodies. The kingdoms of nature are the totality of particular bodies.
467. That which is not a Particular belongs not to the kingdoms of nature, and thus also does not come within the province of Natural History, but of Physics.
468. The earth-element lies at the basis of all the combinations of the elements. These combinations are therefore ascensions or retrogressions in creation. Only three such combinations are therefore possible, viz. 1. Of the earth with water, or air, or fire—binary combination. 2. Of the earth with water and air, without fire—ternary combination. 3. Of the earth with water, air, and fire—quaternary combination.
469. Out of the binary combination the quiescent bodies originate, for they are only a part of the planet—Minerals, Earths.
470. Out of the ternary combination originate bodies that are internally moved, for they are a whole planet in Particulars—Plants.
471. Out of the quaternary combination particular bodies, moved throughout and rotating around themselves, originate; for they are representations of the whole universe—Animals. Individual bodies that are moved internally are called organic.
472. There can be therefore only three Kingdoms of Nature. The first consists simply of individualities, because it is not the equal proportion of all the elements. The two other kingdoms, however, are combinations of the individualities of the earth-element with two or three elements, and are thus equivalent to the planet or to the whole universe. The organic bodies are thus combinations of the Singular with the Whole, and supply the third part of the Philosophy of Nature, the Organology.
[FIRST KINGDOM.]
MINERAL OR EARTH KINGDOM.
473. Uni-or bin-elementary terrestrial bodies are minerals or earths; their development is Mineralogy in the general sense of that term. The earths regarded individually gives us the science of Mineralogy proper; combined to form a whole, that of Geology.
I.—MINERALOGY.
474. Mineralogy teaches us the development of the earth-element.
475. The earth-element does not exist universally, but only in particular bodies or individuals. There is no general earth, but it is either silicious earth or common salt, sulphur or iron, and so on.
476. The earth-element or the earth can only sustain changes, which are permanent or abiding; for in it alone fixation has become formation, in which the atoms do not move, or whereby at least a constant individual character of body, or one that is chemical, becomes apparent. The changes undergone by the other three elements are not constant, because of the atoms ceaselessly moving and balancing themselves. They do not exist individually, but only universally. There is only one water, one air, and only one fire; there are therefore no igneous, aerial, and aqueous individuals.
477. The changes of the earth-element can only take place upon its fundamental or characteristic body, thus on carbon.
478. Nothing can, however, change of itself. All change must proceed from external influence. All things can be changed therefore by such influences only as are already antecedent to or before them. The two other bodies, however, are prior to carbon; before the earth-element only the three other elements.
479. The earth can therefore be changed in only two ways; either the carbon by the other elemental bodies, or the total earth-element by the other elements.
480. The changes wrought by the influence of these bodies are, however, only partial or fractional changes. Therefore partial or chemical diversities only originate, and with them other different bodies or degrees of such. The changes effected by the elements are, however, total changes, which bear not only reference to the carbon, but to all the constituent parts of the earth-element.
481. Total changes or different conditions of the earth-element are called Minerals, or earths.
482. The genesis of minerals, thus their collective character, as differently posited fixations of earth, determines the classes, orders, and genera.
483. The genus is the product of a genetic moment, and is therefore always a definite, chemical mixture, which alone consequently expresses the essential character. Hitherto there has been no definition of mineral genera.
484. Species of minerals are successive developments of the genetic moment, thus stöchiometric subdivisions of the genetic mixture, e. g. the different degrees of oxydation of nitrogen, in the oxyde, binoxyde gases and nitric acid. Hitherto it was not known what a mineral species might be; Physio-philosophy has been the first to introduce clearness to these conceptions.
485. A stöchiometric mixture in the earth-element is an individual.
486. Individuals only are the object of natural history, and thus neither water, air, nor fire. This also was not known previous to Physio-philosophy; it is, however, gradually acknowledged also by empirics.
487. The crystalline form is merely an external character for the species, and therefore the same nuclei may occur in the different orders.
488. Kinds or varieties are different conditions of cohesion. They are therefore not determined by the form of the secondary crystal, since the aberration of forms results only from a stoppage upon their part half way or from the quantitative energy of the polar radii or polar axes.
489. While æther, air, and water, as being general matters, do not belong to the mineral system, what have been called artificial salts must on the contrary be admitted therein, because they are no works of art. The chemist only brings bodies together which do not come together accidentally in nature. It is a true misapprehension of nature's products if those substances only, that adhere to the earth, are recognized as such; surely this definition is perfectly ridiculous.
490. Two kinds or modes of division are possible, a chemical, and a genetic or philosophical.
491. The chemical principle of division of the earth are the elemental bodies. The philosophical or naturo-historical principles of division are the elements.
492. In reference to the chemical bodies four combinations only are possible. 1. Carbon, represented as perfectly pure, may be regarded as Metal. 2. Carbon united with hydrogen, is manifested in the Inflammables. 3. Carbon with oxygen makes its appearance in the Earths. 4. Carbon with oxygen and hydrogen in the Salts. According to this view, the classes would succeed each other thus:—
| 1. | Ores. |
| 2. | Inflammables. |
| 3. | Earths. |
| 4. | Salts. |
Now, as the earths here intervene between the Inflammables and salts, it is at once seen that the series is incorrect; for the earths form by far the largest mass, and must therefore constitute the groundwork or basis of Mineralogy, and thus stand at the commencement. If all metals, Inflammables and salts were to be deducted, the globe of the earth would still lose but little of its magnitude.
493. This chemical division admits thus of no strict arrangement, since what are called minerals follow each other unnaturally. Meantime the chemical view admits also of a philosophical treatment and amelioration of the serial order. It may be said that the earth consists of much carbon, little oxygen and very little hydrogen, without any other element. Salt, of little carbon, much oxygen and little hydrogen, together with water. The Inflammables of little carbon and oxygen, much hydrogen, besides air. Ore, of much carbon, little hydrogen, and still less oxygen with fire. As the fire or the æther is imponderable, so do the three elemental bodies appear blended together into one apparently simple body, with which gravity, light as lustre, heat as spirit and the conduction of heat, are only spiritually combined.
494. But this view leads directly to the genetic division, as the only true one, to that, namely, which has been based upon the mutual influence of all the elements. It is itself the ultimate cause or foundation of chemical division.
495. There can accordingly, as there are only four elements, be only four kinds of minerals. The Earthy either continues unchanged, or it is changed by water, air and fire.
496. When the earth-element originates or separates itself from the water, in order to free itself from all the properties of the latter as well as from those of the air and fire, and to become stiff and solid, the remaining elements exert an incessant influence upon it, and draw a portion of it into their circle, i. e. they confer upon it their properties.
| a. | The Earth-element can be changed by fire | Fire-minerals. |
| b. | Or changed by air | Air-minerals. |
| c. | Or changed by water | Water-minerals. |
| d. | Or lastly, it is severed wholly and substantially free | Earth-minerals. |
497. Through the influx of fire upon the formation of the Earthy it becomes an identical, homogeneous mass, in which the possibility resides, as in the æther itself, of undergoing all changes. This developmental stage of the earth-element is represented by the metal. The homogeneous mass of the metal can become earthy by oxydation, aqueous or saline by acidification, aerial or combustible by being hydrogenized.
498. The metal is unanalysable, as is the æther, although it consists of three forms. The metal is easily restored or brought back from its combinations.
499. Besides, however, the identical, homogeneous or simple character, the metal has still also the three characters of fire or of the æther. It is therefore a triplicity in identity.
a. In so far as gravity is represented in it, it has the identical or homogeneous mass already indicated, and is heavier than all other bodies. It is central mass. It must be regarded as pure carbon. Metal and the body of gravity are one.
b. In so far as light is represented in it, it has the peculiar lustre, which stands again also in intimate connexion with the homogeneous mass. The usual colour of metals is white, the colour of unsullied light. The lustre is properly a self-illumination, and thereupon depends their repulsion of light, or opacity. Metals are therefore adiaphanous or opaque, because they are noncombustible by light. As soon as they become decomposible, namely oxydes, they become also transparent. The metals are the only opaque bodies, because they alone are non-decomposible. All matters become only opaque by admixture with metal, or in so far as the metallic body resides at the bottom of all. The visibility of the world is based upon its metallic character. Without metal we would see nothing.
c. In so far as heat is represented in metal is it extensible, fusible and fluidifiable. Metal is water that has become dense.
500. In so far as the air has acted upon the Earthy during its origin, it has imparted to it electrical and combustible properties; the metal has combined with hydrogen, has become an Inflammable, as in sulphur or pit-coal. Sulphur may be regarded as the intimate fusion of hydrogen with metal; coal as a combination of the same probably elicited by means of oxygen. Inflammables are idioelectric and combustible, because they are rigidified air. That matter belongs only to the Inflammables, which, being once kindled in exposure to the air, continues to burn of itself. The Inflammables are volatile, since they undergo combustion, i. e. they take on the condition of their antetype, the air. They have from metal the opacity and the colours, but they do not preserve the lustre or self-illumination. They become transparent simply by crystallization or oxydation.
501. With the generation of the Earthy water imparts also to a portion of the same its properties, dissolubility and transparency. To the metal and hydrogen oxygen is next added. An hydrated Earthy originates. The Aqueo-earthy is fluid in water; it is salt. Salt changes its form in the readiest manner, because it is the metatype or likeness of water; and hence its susceptibility to crystallization. It is not combustible by itself, because it is essentially an oxyde and hydroid. Salt is a metal or Inflammable that has undergone combustion, and can therefore never be simple.
502. Now that part of the earth-element, which remains after the salt, the Inflammable and the metal have been separated, is plainly the Earthy or the earth. It has therefore no aqueous properties, is not soluble; it has no aerial properties, is not electric and combustible; has no metallic properties, is not heavy, nor opaque and glittering, not fusible and malleable or extensible. The pure Earthy is always fixed or firm, and therefore figurate. The Earthy is a metal, with which the oxygen has been intimately melted down; for it is the identification of all elements.
503. The Earthy is the principal mass, because it represents the earth-element itself. Salt, Inflammable and metal are only subordinate masses, because they are only displacements of the earth-element by the other elements. Therefore a small part only of the Earthy has become salt, a yet smaller Inflammable, and the smallest, metal.
504. Although the metal is simple, it can by no means correspond, as might otherwise appear, to the earth-element; for every element is a totality of elemental bodies, and therefore those minerals, which represent the pure earth-element, must be compound, without, however, exhibiting the characters of the other elements. This is found only in the earths.
505. There are, accordingly, in a genetic point of view, four, and only four, mineral classes. They originate in an ascending direction, from the earth-element by water and air up to fire. The Classes are—
| I. | Earth-minerals | Earths. |
| II. | Water- " | Salts. |
| III. | Air- " | Inflammables. |
| IV. | Fire- " | Ores. |
a. Earths are those minerals, which admit of being changed neither by water, nor air, nor by fire; i. e. which are neither soluble, combustible, fusible, neither yield colour, nor are particularly heavy. Such minerals have been properly called earths, as silicious, sacrilegious earth, &c.
b. Salts are those which have aqueous properties, i. e. are soluble.
c. Inflammables are those which have aerial properties, i. e. are inflammable and volatile.
d. Metallic ores are those which have the three properties of fire, are superlatively heavy, yielding light or colour, and fusible.
506. The Earths are to be regarded as the proper total earth-element, namely as carbon neutralized by oxygen. The Salts are to be regarded as combinations of the earth-and water-elements; therefore as combinations of carbon with oxygen and hydrogen. The Inflammables are to be regarded as combinations of the earth-element with the air-element, thus of carbon with hydrogen, which supplies the place of nitrogen. The Metals are to be regarded as combinations of the earth-element with the fire-element; therefore as carbon without any other body, only combined with spiritual actions, namely gravity, light and heat. Hence the apparent simplicity of metals, and the great number of special properties, which are absent in the other classes.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE CLASSES.
507. As there is not simply a single earth, salt, Inflammable and metal, but in each class many of them; we have to inquire what is the groundwork of their further distinctions or of their systematic division. Here also may we go to work again chemically and philosophically.
a. Chemical Division.
The Metals, chemically regarded, do not admit of being separated into constituent parts. They exhibit only physical differences in gravity, colour, hardness, malleability, conducting power, tension or their mutual polarity. If it be endeavoured to arrange them according to these respects, nothing but disorder results. The same is the case in reference to their affinity for oxygen, sulphur, the acids and other metals. Rather more order is at once displayed if their philosophical composition, namely as carbon and fire, be submitted to our consideration.
508. In consequence of this view, the Metals must divide into Earth-metals and Fire-metals; and the latter again into three subdivisions, nearly as follows:—
A. Earth-metals—difficultly fusible and invariably oxydized—Sidereometalla, e. g. Iron—Manganese, Wolfram, Uranium, Titanium, Chromium, &c.
B. Fire-metals.
a. Heavy metals; difficultly fusible, unoxydized or noble metals, e. g. Platinum, Nickel, Cobalt.
b. Light metals; the easily fused noble metals—e. g. Gold, Silver, &c.
c. Heat-metals; the easily fused, ignoble and frequently volatile metals, e. g. Lead, Tin, Antimony, Zinc, Arsenic, &c.
509. The Inflammables divide under a chemical point of view into two groups—into the varieties of Coal and Sulphur, whereof the Earthy lies at the basis of the former which is non-fusible; the Aerial at that of the latter. They do not admit of being divided, unless a mean betwixt the two be taken, the combinations of carbon and hydrogen in the resins.
510. The Salts admit of a better dismemberment. Their constituent parts are alkalies and acids, the former the Earthy, the latter the Aqueous. The mean condition is exhibited by the neutral salts, so that three orders are the result.
511. Now by the philosophical view we have first attained to the very remarkable import of the acids. They are forsooth nothing else than oxydized elements and mineral classes. In the nitric acid it is evident that, as the acid of nitrogen, it is the aerial acid; as sulphuric acid is the inflammable acid; arsenic acid the metallic acid. Upon this ground we may expect that the other acids also have a similar origin. Without much hesitation hydrochloric acid may be viewed as the aqueous acid, which is associated with the sea; the carbonic acid as æther- or igneous-acid, as well on account of its constituent parts and gaseous character, as chiefly on account of its general diffusion. There remain then only two that have been called mineral acids, the fluoric and boracic acids, the first of which, as conqueress of the earths is the earth acid, the last being thus the acid of the salts. We have accordingly—
| a. Elemental acids. | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. The oxydized æther | is | Carbonic acid. |
| 2. The oxydized air | Nitric acid. | |
| 3. The oxydized water | Hydrochloric acid. | |
| b. Mineral acids. | ||
| 4. The oxydized earth | is | Fluoric acid. |
| 5. The oxydized salt | Boracic acid. | |
| 6. The oxydized inflammable | Sulphuric acid. | |
| 7. The oxydized metal | Arsenic acid. | |
512. The vegetable and animal acids are none other than repetitions of the elemental and mineral acids. They may perhaps be parallelized in the following manner.
| Fire-acid | (Carbonic acid) | Acetic acid | Hæmatosine. |
| Air-acid | (Nitric acid) | Malic acid | Lactic acid. |
| Water-acid | (Hydrochloric acid) | Saccharine acid | Mucic acid. |
| Earth-acid | (Fluoric acid) | Tartaric acid | Phosphoric ac. |
| Salt-acid | (Boracic acid) | Tannic acid | Uric acid. |
| Inflammable-acid | (Sulphuric acid) | Succinic acid | Sebacic acid. |
| Ore-acid | (Arsenic acid) | Indic acid | Formic acid. |
All the remaining acids must be viewed as subordinate to, or as kinds of these.
513. The alkalies appear to follow the same course, though it does not admit of being so completely demonstrated.
| Fire-alkali | Ammonia | Vegetable, | and | Animal alkalies. |
| Air-alkali | Potash | Alcaloids | Alcaloids. | |
| Water | Soda | Urea. | ||
| Earth | Lithium | Bile, &c. | ||
| Salt | ||||
| Inflammable | ||||
| Ore-alkali |
514. The earths proper do not consist of two principles, and do not, therefore admit of being chemically divided.
515. This division is only incorrect in a naturo-historical sense, because it has no reference to the totality. Inasmuch as every mineral class is viewed as having originated out of only one or two elements, it divides by the chemical method only into constituent parts or fractions, as the acids and alkalies, which are obviously only moieties, and taken in a strict sense are not true minerals.
b. Genetic Division of the Classes.
516. The total division only is genetic and consequently correct.
517. As the classes have originated through that which directly preceded them, namely, the elements; so must the divisions of the classes be determined by the other classes. Such divisions are called orders. Every class necessarily divides into four orders.
| Order 1. | Earths. |
| 2. | Salts. |
| 3. | Inflammables. |
| 4. | Ores. |
CLASS I.
EARTHS.
518. There must be therefore pure earths, haloid or salt-earths, inflammable earths and metallic earths or ores.
1. The Earth-earths must have neither saline, nor inflammable nor metallic properties, and thus also be insoluble in acids. Such is the case with the Silicious earths.
2. The Haloid-earths must have saline properties, dissolve in acids, but not fall to pieces when exposed to air and fire. Such is the behaviour of Argillaceous earth; it admits besides of combining with water, that antetype of the salts.
3. The Inflammable earths must be soluble in acids and exhibit electric or aerial properties. Such is the behaviour of the Talcose earths; its minerals are unctuous, fall when exposed to the air into electric lamellæ, and burn brittle.
4. The Metallic earths must undergo change in acids, air and fire. The calcareous earth dissolves in all acids, burns corrosive and becomes almost a metallic calx. The Orders of earth are consequently:
| 1. Earth-earths | Silica; Quartz, &c. |
| 2. Haloid-earths | Clays; Felspar, &c. |
| 3. Inflammable-earths | Talcs; Mica, &c. |
| 4. Metallic-earths or Ores | Calx. |
519. Nature does not produce any so-called pure calcareous earth, but only this earth in an oxydated condition. Carbonic acid is the oxygen of the earth that has become free, and the corroding calx is the Metallic, the other constituent part of the Earthy, which has obtained some oxygen, but lost the Aqueous by the carbonic acid and thereby has become corrosive.
520. The carbonate calcareous earth is the whole earth, not the corrosive. This is only the half of the earth-element, only its basic or phlogistic principle. What has been called pure calcareous earth is a half earth; the perfect or naturo-historical earth is just that which is chemically impure.
521. The calcareous earth is not, however, perfected with one position. It still exhibits several stages of development which appear to be approximations to the salt, e. g. Strontian and Baryta.
522. The silicious earth, which principally represents the Earthy, holds its principles more firmly together. No separation occurs there in the carbonic acid and the basic or corroding body of earth; no association with water, no great activity, no direct participation in the highest evolutions of the planet; but it continues to lie in an extreme state of contraction, and in a state of indifference in the non-differencing darkness.
523. This pure earth is the basis, the pedestal of all the other earths, and the foundation of the planet; for it alone is the earth proper, the earth-abiding earth-element, while the other masses of earth, divided in their principles, have pitched themselves in outward opposition to the sun and other elements. The silicious earth is in every respect the centre of all earthy productions, these being only digressions from it. The Zircon earth is only a removal or displacement of the silicious toward the argillaceous earth.
524. The argillaceous earth also is not dissevered into its principles; it is not found as a carbonate. On the contrary, it is at once shown to be far more pliable by its capacity for being kneaded and moulded in water, and by its hardening when exposed to air and fire. It is also seized upon and dissolved, i. e. reduced to the aqueous condition, by all acids. Its kindred earths are the Glucine and Yttria, verging towards the talcose earths.
525. The first dismemberment of principles is shown by the talcose earth. Where it appears uncombined with the former earths it is carbonate, yet still feebly corrosive.
526. These three principal earths together make up the body of the earth, while the calcareous earth is only spread over them like a mantle or crust.
527. As no earth is in its totality corrosive, and none such occurs in nature or has at least not been originally produced from it, so may the insolubility of the earths in water be set up as an essential and thoroughly valid characteristic of the earths. Their distinctive characters have been sedulously rendered fluctuating, by having been drawn not from nature, but the products of art. That the corrosive chalk is soluble in water, and may therefore be a salt is true; but it has not issued thus out of the womb of nature. Mineralogy knows nothing of a corrosive calcareous earth. The earths are sufficiently separated from the salts by their insolubility in water. They are separated from the ores by their incombustibleness, or, if they have been already burnt, by their incapacity for reduction. As both of these qualities are imparted by fire, so the earths are distinguished by their immutability in fire, whereby is naturally understood not the scoriation, but change of the earthy character. They differ also in the same manner from the Inflammables. Nature does not undertake the artificial reductions of earths to Metalloids, at least not so, that they may become again of themselves earths. The metals are permanent reductions.
528. Earth is thus the body, which is mutable neither in water, air, nor fire. Earth is a water-, air-, and fire-proof body. This is the brief, rigid, wholly exclusive, and significantly expressive definition, which a so-called empirical science could never, but philosophy alone, bestow.
529. The Ore is not soluble in water, nor mutable in air; on the contrary, it is fusible, oxydizable, or reducible in fire. Ore is a water-and air-, but not fire-proof body.
530. The Inflammable is immutable in water, but mutable in air and fire. The Inflammable is a water-proof, but not air-and fire-proof body.
531. The Salt is soluble in water, and decomposible in fire, but immutable in air. Salt is an air-, but not water-and fire-proof body. The legitimate series of gradations comprised in the above four definitions cannot escape the attentive reader, nor moreover that the properties of the earths are all affirmative. Nature has not employed such insignificant means of distinction as our mineralogy has done; has nowhere used an acid in order to distinguish the metals from the earths, nor savour to separate the salts from the earths; but she selects universal reagents which are the elements themselves. So simple is Nature, if we do not violate her by art.
DIVISION OF THE EARTHS.
532. There is not merely a single silicious mineral, but many such, just as in clay, talc, and calx. How, then, do differences occur in these earths? When we survey the science of Mineralogy we remark that most minerals are composed of several earths; with them also metals, coal, sulphur, alkalies and acids are frequently associated. It follows thereupon that the further distinctions are no longer of an internal kind, namely, alterations of substance; but proceed from combinations and thus indicate stöchiometric bodies. The next division of the orders I call Families.
Order 1. Silicious minerals. *
533. With how many bodies now can the silicious earth combine? It will first of all appear in a pure condition, as in quartz; then, in the next place, combine with the other earths, thus with clay, talc and calx. We have thus four families of Earth-silices.
| Fam. 1. | Pure-Silex | Quartz. |
| 2. | Argillaceo-Silex | Zircon. |
| 3. | Talco-Silex | Emerald. |
| 4. | Calcareo-Silex | Leucite. |
534. Thus the hardest minerals or the silicious precious stones are here placed. But these are obviously not exhausted with the above four combinations, but more of the latter must still be sought for. Those bodies which rank next to the earths, and can therefore enter into the following combinations are the other mineral classes, such as the salts, Inflammables, and metals; and we accordingly obtain the following silicious minerals, as constituting classes.
| Fam. 5. | Salt-Silex | Topaz. |
| 6. | Inflammable-Silex | Diamond. |
| 7. | Ore-Silex | Garnet. |
535. Still all the silicious minerals are not exhausted with these combinations. But now the silicious earth can combine with nothing more than the elements, whence three families originate.
| Fam. 8. | Water-Silex | Hornstone, Silicious schist, Jasper, Flint, Opal. |
| 9. | Air-Silex | Silicious sinter, as Tripoli and Polierschiefer. |
| 10. | Fire-Silex | Obsidian with Pitchstone, Pearlstone and Pumice. |
536. Upon casting a glance at this series, it is shown, that the first seven families occur in a crystalline, but the last three only in a compact or structureless condition. The latter occur at the same time in large masses, the former, on the contrary, but scantily dispersed. The first family or the quartz, occurs as well in a compact and massive state as crystallized; the others, on the contrary, taken collectively, are only crystallized, and scarcely form small rocks here and there, but never mountain-chains. They are the precious stones proper, both on account of their hardness, as also their rarity. Precious stones are thus only combinations of silex with other earths, and with the classes; on the contrary, the elemental silices only, viz. the earth-, water-, air-and fire-silices, are massive.
537. It is here shown, that freedom finds a place also in dead nature. Quartz only is necessary as the earth in general. Its marriages with the other earths, &c., to form precious stones are not necessary, but free or accidental, and may therefore happen for the first time in the laboratory.
538. If we now proceed to the arrangement of the Clay, we find exactly the same law to prevail in the genesis of its minerals i. e. stöchiometric combinations with other orders, classes, and elements. We have likewise—
| A.—Earth-Clays. | ||
|---|---|---|
| Fam. 1. | Silicious clays | Felspar. |
| 2. | Argillaceous clays | Sapphire. |
| 3. | Talcose clays | Ruby. |
| 4. | Calcareous clays | Epidote. |
| B.—Class-Clays. | ||
| 5. | Salt-clays | Schorl. |
| 6. | Inflammable clays | Azurite. |
| 7. | Ore-clays | Harmotome. |
| C.—Elemental-Clays. | ||
| 8. | Water-clays | Clay-slate. |
| 9. | Air-clays | Potter's-clay, Clay-stone. |
| 10. | Fire-clays | Lavas, Phonolite, Toad-stone. |
The water-clays are hydrates; the air-clays volatilized hydrates; the fire-clays are clay fused or transmuted by heat. Here also the first 7 families only are crystallized; the 3 last, on the contrary, as well as the first in part, occur only in a compact state and in large masses.
539. The Talcs follow the same laws, and we have—
| A.—Earth-Talcs. | ||
|---|---|---|
| Fam. 1. | Silicious talcs | Mica. |
| 2. | Argillaceous talcs | Sapphirine. |
| 3. | Talcose talcs | Talc, Chlorite. |
| 4. | Calcareous talcs | Augite. |
| B.—Class-Talcs. | ||
| 5. | Salt-talcs | Hornblende. |
| 6. | Inflammable-talcs | Asbestus. |
| 7. | Ore-talcs | Olivine. |
| C.—Elemental-Talcs. | ||
| Fam. 8. | Water-talcs | Serpentin, Steatite. |
| 9. | Air-talcs | Lithomarge, Fuller's-earth, Bole. |
| 10. | Fire-talcs | Basalt. |
Here also the first 7 families only are crystallized and occur for the most part in a scattered manner; but the aqueous, aerial, and igneous families, as well as the first family in part, are merely compact and mountainous masses.
540. The fourth order or that of the Calcareous earths is developed likewise according to the same laws. As, however, it approximates the salts, and therefore combines with acids, it presents many anomalous varieties, of which account cannot be taken in every instance. These minerals are soft throughout, change by fire and admit of being wholly or partially dissolved in acids. Here belong the zeolites, or combinations of the calcareous earths with the other earths.
| A.—Calcareous earths, Zeolites. | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Silicio-calcareous earths | Lapis lasuli, Scapolite. |
| 2. | Argillaceo- " | Mesotype, Analcime, Stilbite. |
| 3. | Talco- " | Stellite. |
| 4. | Calcareo- " | Tabular spar. |
| B.—Classes of Calcareous earths. | ||
| 5. | Halo-calcareous earths | Boracite. |
| 6. | Inflammable- " | Phosphate of lime, Fluorspar? |
| 7. | Ore- " | Titanite, Tungsten. |
| C.—Elemental-Calcareous earths. | ||
| 8. | Water calcareous earth | Hydrophyllite? Wavellite. |
| 9. | Air- " | Gypsum, Heavy-spar, Celestine. |
| 10. | Fire- " | Limestone. |
Here also the first 7 tribes only occur crystallized, the 3 last, in a great measure, compact, and as mountainous masses.
CLASS II.
WATER-EARTHS. SALTS.
541. The chief distinctions of the salts consist also in their combination with the other classes, and we have therefore 4 orders—
| 1. Earth-Salts | Double-salts. |
| 2. Saline-Salts | Neutral-salts. |
| 3. Inflammable-Salts | Saponaceous-compounds. |
| 4. Metallic-Salts | Vitriols. |
The same will hold good without doubt of the orders, as in the case of the earths. They form as many families as there are principal masses of them present, with which they may combine. As the acids, from being the children or offspring of water, play the chief part in the water minerals, and are themselves nothing else than oxydized and outwardly lying masses, they carry consequently within themselves the number and import of the families; thus it is they which determine indeed the division. If the bases were to be taken as the groundwork of arrangement, there would be only earths and alkalies, and on the other hand numerous metals, by which step the mineralogist would fall into the unprincipled method of classification adopted by empirics. Here also the philosophy of nature shows, and that indeed upon sound reasoning, that the acids and not the bases afford the principle of a natural classification. A somewhat different opinion is held by the chemist, who must characterize the salts according to both series; but this is by no means the course taken by the historian of nature.
Order I.
Earth-Salts—Double Salts.
(Combinations of acids with earths.)
Fam. 1-4. Earthy-acids or Fluoric-acid earths; here also belong Bromic, Iodic, and Cyanic acids.
5. Salt or Boracic-acid.
6. Inflammable or Sulphuric-acid—Alum, Sulphate of magnesia.
7. Metallic or Arsenic-acid.
8. Water or Hydrochloric-acid—the earths Barytes, Strontian, and Lime; Murias ammoniæ, Chloride of Calcium.
9. Air or Nitric-acid—Strontium, Nitrate of lime.
10. Fire or Carbonic-acid—Vegetable-acid earths.
| Order II. | ||
|---|---|---|
| Salt-Salts—Neutral Salts. | ||
| (Combinations of acids with alkalies.) | ||
| 1-4. | Fluoric-acid | |
| 5. | Boracic-acid | Borax. |
| 6. | Sulphuric-acid | Sulphate of soda, Sulphate of potash. |
| 7. | Arsenic-acid. | |
| 8. | Hydrochloric-acid | Rock-salt, Muriate of soda, Sal-ammoniacum or salmiac. |
| 9. | Nitric-acid | Nitrate of potash or saltpetre, Cream of tartar. |
| 10. | Carbonic-acid | Soda, Subcarbonate of potash, Binoxalate of potash, Acetate of potash. |
| Order III. | ||
| Inflammable-Salts—Saponaceous-compounds. | ||
| (Soluble, and at the same time combustible bodies.) | ||
| 1-4. | Earth-Soaps | Calcareo-sulphuret of potash. |
| 5. | Salt-Soaps | Common sulphuret of potash. |
| 6. | Inflammable-Soaps | Fatty or soft soaps. |
| 7. | Metallic-Soaps | Metallic Soaps. |
| 8. | Water-Soaps | Animal mucilages. |
| 9. | Air-Soaps | Saccharum or sugar. |
| 10. | Fire-Soaps | Vegetable extracts. |
| Order IV. | ||
| Ore-Salts—Vitriols. | ||
| (Combinations of acids with metals.) | ||
| 1-4. | Fluoric-acid | |
| 5. | Boracic-acid | |
| 6. | Sulphuric-acid | Iron, Copper, Zinc, Vitriol. |
| 7. | Arsenic-acid | White arsenic. |
| 8. | Hydrochloric-acid | Calomel, Corrosive sublimate. |
| 9. | Nitric-acid | Nitrate of silver. |
| 10. | Carbonic-acid | Sugar of lead. |
CLASS III.
AIR-EARTHS—INFLAMMABLES.
542. It is very difficult to arrange this class, because it has been wholly neglected by mineralogists, and is, properly speaking, quite unknown to them, because they have had recourse only to those combustible bodies which occur accidentally in the earth, while according to philosophical principles everything belongs to the province of natural history, that has originated or may originate in nature, so that its situation is a matter of complete indifference. If we follow the same laws according to which the earths and salts have been so excellently arranged, we must here also adopt four orders, namely, combustible things which bear a resemblance to earths, others to salts, others to metals; finally, others which represent combustibility in a pure state, and thus we obtain—
| 1. Earth-Inflammables | Coals. |
| 2. Salt-Inflammables | Fats. |
| 3. Inflammable-Inflammables | Resins. |
| 4. Ore-Inflammables | Colouring matters. |
The Earth-inflammables will be such as are solid and burn, without becoming fluid, e. g. Common Coal. The Salt-inflammables will either be or become fluid before they undergo combustion, and are readily converted of themselves into acids, e. g. Animal and Vegetable Fats. The Inflammable-inflammables will be of a sulphurous character, solid or fluid, fragile, electric, fetid and fluid before they burn. These properties are found in the Resins. The Ore-inflammables are those which, independently of their combustibility, possess pre-eminently one property of metals, namely their non-transparency, or coloration, e. g. the Pigments or colouring matters from the organic kingdoms.
| Order I. | ||
|---|---|---|
| Earth-Inflammables—Coals. | ||
| 1-4. | Earth-Coals | Common-coal, a mixture of coal and earths. |
| 5. | Salt-Coals | Gunpowder, viz. a combination of charcoal with a salt. |
| 6. | Inflammable-Coals | Glance-coal, viz. carbon without earths. |
| 7. | Ore-Coals | Black-lead, or carburet of iron. |
| 8. | Water-Coals | Peat-bog and brown or Common coal? |
| 9. | Air-Coals | Lignite or wood-coal? |
| 10. | Fire-Coals | Animal carbon, fibrine. |
| Order II. | ||
| Salt-Inflammables—Adipaceous or Unctuous bodies. | ||
| 1-4. | Earth-fats | Spermaceti? Tallow. |
| 5. | Salt-fats | Lard and Train-oil? |
| 6. | Inflammable-fats | Butter? |
| 7. | Ore-fats | Wax? |
| 8. | Water-fats | Vegetable oils? |
| 9. | Air-fats | Desiccative or drying oils. |
| 10. | Fire-fats | Greasy oils. |
| Order III. | ||
| Inflammable-Inflammables—Resins. | ||
| 1-4. | Earth-resins | Sulphur, Phosphorus. |
| 5. | Saline-resins | Chloride of sulphur, Chlorate of Sulphur. |
| 6. | Inflammable-resins | Mineral-pitch, Amber, Turpentine. |
| 7. | Ore-resins | Balsams. |
| 8. | Water-resins | Gum-resins. |
| 9. | Air-resins | Ætherial oils. |
| 10. | Fire-resins | Alcohol, Æther. |
| Order IV. | ||
| Ore-Inflammables—Pigments. | ||
| 1-4. | Earth-pigments | Ochre-pigments. |
| 5. | Salt-pigments | Soluble-pigments from roots and wood, such as Krapp and Dier's-weed. |
| 6. | Inflammable-pigments | Retinoid-pigments from roots and wood, such as Dragon's-blood, Turmeric. |
| 7. | Ore-pigments | Indigo or devil's-dye. |
| 8. | Water-pigments | Sap-colours, such as Sap-green, Oak-gall. |
| 9. | Air-pigments | Flower colours, such as Saffranon and Saffron. |
| 10. | Fire-pigments | Animal colours, as Scarlet and Blood-red. |
CLASS IV.
FIRE-EARTHS—ORES.
543. The metals are again easier of arrangement, because they have a resemblance to earths and have been better worked out both in chemistry and mineralogy. They divide very naturally into—
| 1. Earth-Ores | Ochres, combinations of metals with oxygen. |
| 2. Salt-Ores | Haloids, insoluble combinations of metals with acids. |
| 3. Inflammable-Ores | Blendes, combinations of metals with Sulphur, Phosphorus, and Selenium. |
| 4. Metallic-Ores | Pure metals. |
The principles of this arrangement which has been at present pretty generally followed, were first published in my essay 'Das naturliche System der Erze,' 1809. In order to gain a proper insight into the serial gradation of all the families we must first regard the 4th order.
| Order I. | ||
|---|---|---|
| Earth-Ores—Ochres. | ||
| 1. | Silicious-Ochres | Metallic calces with silicious earth, as Lierite, Dioptase, Electric calamine. |
| 2. | Argillaceous-Ochres | Clay-iron-stone. |
| 3. | Talcose-Ochres | Blue-iron-stone. |
| 4. | Calcareous-Ochres | Black oxyde of manganese. |
| 5. | Salt-Ochres | Calces not peroxydized. Bog-iron. |
| 6. | Inflammable-Ochres | Pure calces without metallic lustre, as Wolfram, Protoxide of Uranium, Rutile, Tin-stone. |
| 7. | Ore-Ochres | Oxydulated, as Iron-glance, Red oxyd of Copper. |
| 8. | Water-Ochres | Hydrates, as Brown-iron-stone-ore, Gray ore of manganese. |
| 9. | Air-Ochres | Malm-rocks; volatilized Ochres of the difficultly fusible metals, as Umbra, Yellow earth, Earthy manganese, Black cobalt. |
| 10. | Fire-Ochres | Slags, volatilized calces of the difficultly fusible metals, as oxyde of or White antimony, Protoxide of Arsenic. |
| Order II. | ||
| Salt-Ores—Haloids. | ||
| 4. | Earth-Haloids | Fluoric-acid. |
| 5. | Salt-Haloids | Boracic-acid. |
| 6. | Inflammable-Haloids | Sulphuric-acid, as Sulphate of lead, Phosphoric-acid as Green and Blue phosphates of iron, Diarsenate of iron, Uran-glance, Green phosphate of Lead. |
| 7. | Ore-Haloids | Chromic-acid, as Chromate of lead, Arsenic-acid, as Cube-ore, Arseniate of iron, Olivenite, Cobalt-bloom. |
| 8. | Water-Haloids | Hydrochloric-acid, as Muriate of copper, Horn-silver. |
| 9. | Air-Haloids | Nitric-acid. |
| 10. | Fire-Haloids | Carbonic-acid, as Iron-spar, Red manganese-ore, Earthy blue-copper, Malachite, Carbonate of lead. |
| Order III. | ||
| Inflammable-Ores—Blendes. | ||
| 1. | Silicious-Blendes | Zinc-blendes, Cinnabar, Red antimony and Ruby-silver-ore. |
| 2. | Argillaceous-Blendes | Iron and Copper pyrites. |
| 3. | Talcose-Blendes | Sulphuret of Titanium, Chrome, Uranium. |
| 4. | Calcareous-Blendes | Sulphuret of Molybdena. |
| 5. | Salt-Blendes | Copper-glance, Gray copper. |
| 6. | Inflammable-Blendes | Nickel-glance, Cobalt-glance. |
| 7. | Ore-Blendes | Sulphuret of Platinum. |
| 8. | Water-Blendes | Gray antimony, Galena. |
| 9. | Air-Blendes | Bismuth-glance, Arsenical pyrites. |
| 10. | Fire-Blendes | Silver-glance-ore. |
Order IV.
Metallic-Ores.—Metals.
(Pure or reduced metals.)
544. The classification of metals is one of the most difficult, because no natural arrangement of them has been as yet attempted, and their signification is also so mysterious that we can only get at it, by clinging fast to the laws of development. Thus assuming, that they likewise arrange themselves according to the elements, classes and orders of the earths, we have at once the Elemental metals. The earth-metals are without doubt the difficultly fusible, ignoble or oxydized, such as iron with its congeners. Then the air-metals present themselves with their peculiar character of volatility, as Arsenic with its congeners. These being once rendered solid, the easily fusible but non-volatile will correspond to water, such as Lead with its congeners. The noble metals consequently as Gold, Silver, &c., must doubtless be regarded as fire-metals. Having once separated these 4 groups, the Class-metals admit of being more readily brought into their place. There is one metal, which subjected to moisture is readily converted into a salt, namely copper. This is consequently the representative of the salts among the metals. Ore-metals are, without doubt, those resembling iron, which do not, however, occur in an oxydized condition and are therefore noble Irons. Of this kind are Platinum with its retinue. Between Copper and Platinum nothing else can be introduced but Nickel and Cobalt, as they are likewise difficultly fusible and tolerably noble. They are thus the Inflammable metals. After all these separations a great group is still left of the earth-metals or the difficultly fusible and ignoble. They divide therefore without doubt according to the 4 earths. If now iron approximates the argillaceous-earths, so will those metals whose oxydes are distinguished by a striking colour be regarded as talc-metals. Of this kind are Titanium, Chromium, Uranium, which crystallize moreover into spiculæ like hornblende, or into lamellæ like mica. These again being separated the silicious and calcareous-metals remain for investigation. The former are those which scarcely admit of being reduced; the latter, on the contrary, those which approximate to the noble, difficultly fusible metals, namely to platinum. It can hardly be doubted that Tantalum is the silicious-metal. For the calcareous-metals Sulphuret of Molybdenum is left, to which Osmium seems to approximate. We have accordingly the following genetic arrangement:
| A.—Earth-Metals. | ||
|---|---|---|
| (Difficultly fusible and ignoble.) | ||
| 1. | Silicious-Metals | Tantalium. |
| 2. | Argillaceous-Metals | Wolfram, Cerium, Manganese, Iron. |
| 3. | Talcose-Metals | Titanium,Chromium, Uranium, Vanadium. |
| 4. | Calcareous-Metals | Molybdenum, Osmium. |
| B.—Class-Metals. | ||
| (Difficultly fusible and noble.) | ||
| 5. | Salt-Metals | Copper. |
| 6. | Inflammable-Metals | Nickel, Cobalt. |
| 7. | Ore-Metals | Platinum, Palladium, Iridium, Rhodium. |
| C.—Element-Metals. | ||
| (Easily fusible or noble.) | ||
| 8. | Water-Metals | Antimony, Lead, Tin |
| 9. | Air-Metals | Zinc, Cadmium, Bismuth, Arsenic. |
| 10. | Fire-Metals | Tellurium, Mercury, Silver, Gold. |
Every one will easily see that these groups of metals agree with their antetypes in properties, as also that this arrangement is more natural than any that has hitherto been advanced. Glancing at it, it must strike the reader that in several of the families 4 metals are present, and that none exceed this number. There are 4 sideroid, 4 titanoid, 4 platinoid, 4 arsenicoid and 4 argyroid metals. Now, as they are to be viewed as deoxydized earths, it must be assumed that in each family they are mindful of their origin, and everywhere represent the 4 earths along with the character of their family. They are earths divided unto the last members, or reduced in a primo-chemical manner. In order to recognize the parallelism of the classes, orders and families, we have only to compare the adjoining table. We cannot expect to find all the minerals ranging there in their proper place. For we are treating the subject at present only as regards its principles.
| FIRST CLASS. | |||
| EARTH-EARTHS—EARTHS. | |||
| ORDER I. | ORDER II. | ORDER III. | ORDER IV. |
| Earth-Earths. | Salt-Earths. | Inflammable Earths. | Ore-earths. |
| Silex. | Clays. | Talcs. | Calcareous-earths. |
| Fam. 1. Pure Silex. | Fam. 1. Silicious Clays. | Fam. 1. Silicious Talcs. | Fam. 1. Silicious Kalke. |
| 1. Quartz. | 1. Feldspar. | 1. Mica. | 1. Lapis-lazuli. |
| 2. Iron Flint. | 2. Anorthite. | 2. Pinite. | 2. Hauyne. |
| 3. Petalite. | 3. Holmesite. | 3. Sodalite. | |
| 4. Oligoclase. | 4. Margarite. | 4. Scapolite. | |
| 5. Triphane. | 5. Nepheline. | ||
| 6. Andalusite. | |||
| 7. Crucite. | |||
| F. 2. Argillaceo-Silex. | F. 2. Argillaceous Clays. | F. 2. Argillaceous Talcs. | F. 2. Argillaceo-Kalke. |
| 1. Zircon. | 1. Sapphire. | 1. Sapphirine. | 1. Fugenstein. |
| 2. Œrstedite. | 2. Chrysoberyl. | 2. Seybertite. | 2. Frehnite. |
| 3. Cyanite. | 3. Chabazite. | ||
| 4. Sillimanite. | 4. Laumontite. | ||
| 5. Stilbite. 6. Desmin.7. Analcime. 8. Mesotype. | |||
| F. 3. Talco-Silex. | F. 3. Talcose Clays. | F. 3. Talcose Talcs. | F. 3. Talco-Kalke. |
| 1. Emerald. | 1. Spinel. | 1. Talc. | 1. Adelforsite. |
| 2. Davidsonite. | 2. Automolite. | 2. Pyrophillite. | 2. Stellite. |
| 3. Euclase. | 3. Dichroite. | 3. Chlorite. | 3. Mellilite. |
| 4. Phenacite. | 4. Humboldtite. | ||
| F. 4. Calcareo-silex. | F. 4. Calcareous-Clays. | F. 4. Calcareous Talcs. | F. 4. Calcareo-Kalke. |
| 1. Leucite. | 1. Epidote. | 1. Augite. | 1. Tubular spar. |
| 2. Glaucolite. | 2. Mangan-epidote. | 2. Diopside. | 2. Apophyllite. |
| 3. Sahlite. 4. Pyroxene. 5. Coccolite. 6. Hedenbergite.7. Diallage. 8. Bronzite. 9. Hypersthene. | |||
| F. 5. Salt-Silex. | F. 5. Salt-Clays. | F. 5. Salt-Talcs. | Fam. 5. Salt-Kalke. |
| 1. Topaz. | 1. Yttro-cerite. | 1. Grammatite. | 1. Boracite. |
| 2. Physalite. | 2. Schorl. | 2. Strahlstein. | 2. Datholite. |
| 3. Pycnite. | 3. Axinite. | 3. Hornblende. | |
| 4. Anthophyllite. | |||
| F. 6. Inflammable Silex. | F. 6. Inflammable-Clays. | F. 6. Inflammable-Talcs. | F. 6. Inflammable-Kalke. |
| 1. Diamond. | 1. Lazulite. | 1. Asbestus. | 1. Cryolite. |
| 2. Turquois. | 2. Fluorspar. | ||
| 3. Amblygonite. | 3. Wagnerite. | ||
| 4. Apatite. | |||
| F. 7. Ore-Silex. | F. 7. Ore-Clays. | F. 7. Ore-Talcs. | F. 7. Ore-Kalke. |
| 1. Garnet. | 1. Harmotome. | 1. Chrysolite. | 1. Titanite. |
| 2. Vesuvian. | 2. Gadolinite. | 2. Hyalosiderite. | 2. Tungsten. |
| 3. Acmite. | 3. Orthite. | 3. Pharmacolite. | |
| F. 8. Water-Silex. | F. 8. Water-Clays. | F. 8. Water-Talcs. | F. 8. Water-Kalke. |
| 1. Flint-stone. | 1. Wærthite. | 1. Schiller-spar. | 1. Diaspore. |
| 2. Jasper. | 2. Allophane. | 2. Serpentine. | 2. Wavellite. |
| 3. Hornstone. | 3. Pyrophyllite. | 3. Steatite. | 3. Hydrophyllite. |
| 4. Opal. | 4. Clay-slate. | 4. Meerschaum. | |
| F. 9. Air-Silex. | F. 9. Air-Clays. | F. 9. Air-Talcs. | F. 9. Air-Kalke. |
| 1. Tripoli. | 1. Potter's-clay. | 1. Agalmatolite. | 1. Aluminite. |
| 2. Polierschiefer. | 2. Clay-stone. | 2. Lithomarge. | 2. Heavy-spar. |
| 3. Silicious-sinter. | 3. Porcelain-clay. | 3. Fuller's-earth. | 3. Celestine. |
| 4. Cimolite. | 4. Bole. | 4. Gypsum. | |
| F. 10. Fire-Silex. | F. 10. Fire-Clays. | F. 10. Fire-Talcs. | F. 10. Fire-Kalke. |
| 1. Pitchstone. | 1. Clay Iron-stone. | 1. Basalt. | 1. Mellilite. |
| 2. Pearlstone. | 2. Toad-stone. | 2. Magnesite. | |
| 3. Obsidian. | 3. Phonolite. | 3. Strontianite. | |
| 4. Pumice. | 4. Lavas. | 4. Limestone. | |
| SECOND CLASS. | |||
| WATER-EARTHS—SALTS. | |||
| ORDER I. | ORDER II. | ORDER III. | ORDER IV. |
| Earth-Salts. | Salt-Salts. | Inflammable Salts. | Ore-Salts. |
| Double Salts. | Neutral Salts. | Soaps. | Vitriols. |
| Fam. 1. Silicic Acid. | Fam. 1. Fluoric Acid. | Fam. 1. Silicio-sulphuret of Potash. | Fam. 1. Fluoric Acid. |
| Fluoric-acid earths. | Alkalis. | Metals. | |
| F. 2. Albuminic Acid. | F. 2. Bromic Acid. | F. 2. Argillaceo-sulphuret of Potash. | F. 2. Bromic Acid. |
| Bromic acid. | |||
| F. 3. Oxide of Magnesia. | F. 3. Iodic Acid. | F. 3. Magnesio-sulphuret of Potash. | F. 3. Iodic Acid. |
| F. 4. Oxide of Calcium. | F. 4. Cyanic Acid. | F. 4. Calcareo-sulphuret of Potash. | F. 4. Cyanic Acid. |
| Cyanic acid. | |||
| F. 5. Hydrochloric Acid. | F. 5. Hydrochloric Acid. | F. 5. Salt-Soaps. | F. 5. Hydrochloric Acid. |
| Boracic acid. | 1. Sassoline. | 1. Potassio-sulphuret of Potash. | |
| 2. Borax. | 2. Ammoniaco-sulphuret of Potash. | ||
| F. 6. Pyric Acid. | F. 6. Inflammable-Acid. | F. 6. Inflammable-Soaps. | F. 6. Inflammable-Acid. |
| 1. Alum. | 1. Sulphate of Soda. | 1. Hard or Soda-soap | 1. Green or Iron-vitriol. |
| 2. Magnesia. | 2. Sulphate of Potash. | 2. Soft or Potash-soap | 2. Blue or Copper-vitriol. |
| 3. Mascagnine. | 3. Linimentum volatile | 3. White or Zinc-vitriol. | |
| 4. Sub-nitrate of Bismuth. | |||
| F. 7. Metallic Oxide. | F. 7. Ore-Acid. | F. 7. Metallic Soaps. | F. 7. Metallic Acid. |
| Arsenic acid. | 1. Antimonium diaphoreticum. | 1. Carbonate of Lead. | 1. White Arsenic. |
| 2. Liquor arsenicalis Fowleri. | |||
| F. 8. Water-Acid. | F. 8. Water-Acid. | F. 8. Water-Soaps. | F. 8. Water-Acid. |
| 1. Sulphate of Magnesia. | 1. Rock-salt. | 1. Mucus. | 1. Butter of Antimony. |
| 2. Sulphate of Baryta. | 2. Muriate of Soda. | 2. Gelatine. | 2. Calomel. |
| 3. Murias Ammoniæ. | 3. Salmiac. | 3. Albumen. | |
| 4. Chloride of Calcium. | 4. Coagulable lymph. | ||
| F. 9. Air-Acid. | F. 9. Air-Acid. | F. 9. Air-Soaps. | F. 9. Air-Acid. |
| Nitric acid. | Nitrate of Potash. | 1. Sugar. | 1. Nitrate of Silver. |
| 1. Nitrate of Strontian. | 2. Manna. | ||
| 2. Nitrate of Lime. | 3. Honey. | ||
| F. 10. Fire-Acid. | F. 10. Fire-Acid. | F. 10. Fire-Soaps. | F. 10. Fire-Acid. |
| Carbonic acid. | 1. Soda. | 1. Extracts. | 1. Tartar emetic. |
| Super-carbonate of Lime. | 2. Subcarbonate of Potash. | 2. Sugar of Lead. | |
| 3. Binoxalate of Potash | 3. Fulminating Silver. | ||
| Acetate of Potash. | 4. Acetate of Potash. | ||
| THIRD CLASS. | |||
| AIR-EARTHS—INFLAMMABLES. | |||
| ORDER I. | ORDER II. | ORDER III. | ORDER IV. |
| Earth-Inflammables | Salt-Inflammables. | Inflammable-Inflammables. | Ore-Inflammables. |
| Coals. | Fats. | Resins. | Pigments. |
| Fam. 1. Silicious Coals. | Fam. 1. Spermaceti. | Fam. 1. Sulphur. | Fm. 1. Silicious-Pigments. |
| 1. Common Coal. | 1. Alcohol of Sulphur. | 1. Litmus. | |
| 2. Orpiment. | |||
| F. 2. Argillaceous Coals. | F. 2. Adipocire. | F. 2. Boron. | F. 2. Argillaceous Pigments. |
| 1. Common Coal. | |||
| F. 3. Talcose Coals. | F. 3. Oleine. | F. 3. Selenium. | F. 3. Talc Pigments. |
| 1. Common Coal. | |||
| F. 4. Calcareous Coals. | F. 4. Tallow. | F. 4. Phosphorus. | F. 4. Calcareous Pigments. |
| 1. Common Coal. | 1. Stearine. | ||
| F. 5. Salt-Coals. | F. 5. Salt-Fats. | F. 5. Salt-Resins. | F. 5. Salt-Pigments. |
| 1. Gunpowder. | 1. Lard. | 1. Chloride of Sulphur. | 1. Krapp. |
| 2. Train-oil. | 2. Chloride of Phosphorus. | 2. Dier's-weed. | |
| F. 6. Inflammable-Coals. | F. 6. Inflammable-Fats. | F. 6. Inflammable-Resins. | F. 6. Inflammable-Pigments. |
| 1. Anthracite. | 1. Butter. | 1. Mineral-pitch. | 1. Sandal-wood. |
| 2. Cream. | 2. Amber. | 2. Log-wood. | |
| 3. Turpentine. | 3. Curcuma. | ||
| 4. Caoutchouc. | 4. Chlorophyle. | ||
| F. 7. Ore-Coals. | F. 7. Ore-Fats. | F. 7. Ore-Resins. | F. 7. Ore-Pigments. |
| 1. Black Lead. | 1. Wax. | 1. Turpentine. | 1. Succory. |
| 2. Pyrorthite. | 2. Balsam of Peru. | 2. Quercitron. | |
| 3. Mecca-balsam | 3. Woad. | ||
| F. 8. Water-Coals. | F. 8. Water-Fats. | F. 8. Water-Resins. | F. 8. Water-Pigments. |
| 1. Brown Coals. | 1. Cocoa-butter. | 1. Assafœtida. | 1. Sap-green. |
| 2. Peat. | 2. Palm-oil. | 2. Gumboge. | 2. Oak-gall. |
| 3. Nutmeg. | 3. Myrrh. | ||
| 4. Laurel-oil. | 4. Opium. | ||
| F. 9. Air-Coals. | F. 9. Air-Fats. | F. 9. Air-Resins. | F. 9. Air-Pigments. |
| 1. Lignite. | 1. Linseed-oil. | 1. Petroleum. | 1. Saffranon. |
| 2. Nut-oil. | 2. Dippel's Oil. | 2. Saffron. | |
| 3. Hemp-oil. | 3. Camphor. | 3. Anotto. | |
| 4. Poppy-oil. | 4. Oil of Turpentine. | ||
| F. 10. Fire-Coals. | F. 10. Fire-Fats. | F. 10. Fire-Resins. | F. 10. Fire-Pigments. |
| 1. Fibrine. | 1. Rape-oil. | 1. Spirits of Wine. | 1. Scarlet. |
| 2. Olive-oil. | 2. Sulphuric Ether. | 2. Blood-red. | |
| 3. Oil of Almonds. | 3. Acetic Ether. | ||
| 4. Formic Spirit. | |||
| FOURTH CLASS. | |||
| FIRE-EARTHS—ORES. | |||
| ORDER I. | ORDER II. | ORDER III. | ORDER IV. |
| Earth-Ores. | Salt-Ores. | Inflammable-Ores. | Ore-Ores. |
| Ochres. | Halde. | Inflammables. | Metals. |
| Fam. 1. Silicious Ochres. | Fam. 1. Silicious Halde. | F. 1. Silic. Inflammables. | F. 1. Silicious Metals. |
| 1. Lierite. | 1. Fluor-Cererium. | 1. Zinc-blende. | 1. Tantalium. |
| 2. Dioptase. | 2. Cinnabar. | ||
| 3. Antimonial Silver. | 3. Red Antimony. | ||
| 4. Electric Calamine. | 4. Ruby Silver-ore. | ||
| F. 2. Argillaceous Ochres. | F. 2. Argillaceous Halde. | F. 2. Argillaceous Inflammables. | F. 2. Argillaceous Metals. |
| 1. Clay Iron-stone. | Bromic acid. | 1. Iron Pyrites. | 1. Wolfram. |
| 2. Polymignite. | 2. Copper Pyrites. | 2. Iron. | |
| 3. Yttro-tantalite. | 3. Tin Pyrites. | 3. Cerium. | |
| 4. Manganese. | |||
| F. 3. Talc Ochres. | F. 3. Talc-Halde. | F. 3. Talc Inflammables. | F. 3. Talc-Metals. |
| 1. Blue Iron-stone. | Iodic acid. | 1. Vanadium. | |
| 2. Uranium. | |||
| 3. Titanium. | |||
| 4. Chromium. | |||
| F. 4. Calcareous Ochres. | F. 4. Calcareous Halde. | F. 4. Calcareous Inflammables. | F. 4. Calcareous Metals. |
| 1. Black oxide of Manganese. | Cyanic acid. | 1. Sulphuret of Molybdena. | 1. Molybdenum. |
| 2. Pyrochlore. | 2. Osmium. | ||
| F. 5. Salt-Ochres. | F. 5. Salt-Halde. | F. 5. Salt-Inflammables. | F. 5. Salt-Metals. |
| 1. Bog-iron. | Boracic acid. | 1. Copper-glance. | 1. Copper. |
| 2. Gray-copper. | |||
| F. 6. Inflammable-Ochres. | F. 6. Inflammable-Halde. | F. 6. Inflammable-Inflammables. | F. 6. Inflammable-Metals. |
| 1. Wolfram. | 1. Sulphate of Lead. | 1. Nickel-glance. | 1. Nickel. |
| 2. Protoxide of Uranium. | 2. Blue phosphate of Iron. | 2. Cobalt-glance. | 2. Cobalt. |
| 3. Rutile. | 3. Uran-glance | ||
| 4. Tin-stone. | 4. Green phosphate of Lead. | ||
| F. 7. Ore-Ochres. | F. 7. Ore-Halde. | F. 7. Ore-Inflammables. | F. 7. Ore-Metals. |
| 1. Iron-glance. | 1. Chromate of Lead. | 1. Sulphur-Platinum. | 1. Rhodium. |
| 2. Titanate of Iron. | 2. Cube-ore. | 2. Iridium | |
| 3. Chromate of Iron. | 3. Olivenite. | 3. Palladium. | |
| 4. Red Copper ore. | 4. Cobalt-bloom. | 4. Platinum. | |
| F. 8. Water-Ochres. | F. 8. Water-Halde. | F. 8. Water-Inflammables. | F. 8. Water-Metals. |
| 1. Thraulite. | 1. Muriate of Copper. | 1. Antimonial Nickel. | 1. Antimony. |
| 2. Brown Iron-stone ore. | 2. Horn-lead. | 2. Gray Antimony | 2. Tin. |
| 3. Gray ore of Manganese. | 3. Horn-silver. | 3. Lead. | |
| 3. Galena. | |||
| F. 9. Air-Ochres. | F. 9. Air-Halde. | F. 9. Air-Inflammables. | F. 9. Air-Metals. |
| 1. Umbra. | Nitric acid. | 1. Acicular Bismuth. | 1. Zinc. |
| 2. Yellow-earth. | 2. Cadmium. | ||
| 3. Black Copper. | 2. Bismuth-glance. | 3. Bismuth. | |
| 4. Black Cobalt. | 3. Arsenical Pyrites. | 4. Arsenic. | |
| F. 10. Fire-Ochres. | F. 10. Fire-Halde. | F. 10. Fire-Inflammables. | F. 10. Fire-Metals. |
| 1. White Antimony | 1. Iron-spar. | 1. Foliated Tellurium. | 1. Tellurium. |
| 2. Mennige. | 2. Earthy blue copper. | 2. Silver-glance. | 2. Mercury. |
| 3. Bismuth Ochre. | 3. Carbon of Lead. | 3. Silver. | |
| 4. Protoxide of Arsenic. | 4. Calamine. | 4. Gold. | |
II.—GEOLOGY.
545. Geology is the history of the formation of the planet. It is the doctrine which comprises the structure and thus the form, with the organs or members of the planet, if we would compare the latter with an organic body.
1. Form of the Planet.
546. Crystallization belongs to the essence of the earth as the globular form does to that of water. The life of the earth consists in the formation of crystals. The being of the earth and of the crystal are identical. The solid planet earth, has originated also according to the laws of crystallization.
547. It is not, however, a single large crystal, the structure of which appears to be homogeneous; but it is crystallized in its smallest parts; it is an accumulation of crystals, which its atoms, integral parts, or constituent forms present for our examination. If a schorl or feldspar were extended to the size of the whole earth, its integral parts, though undiscoverable before by the microscope, would then become visible. Crystals would be exhibited therein of silicious, argillaceous, talcose, and calcareous earths, of iron, boracic acid, &c. In short it would prove a complex kind of rock or mountain. The fundamental or principal mass of the planet is thus a granular kind of rock or mountain, probably like granite. Each of these constituent forms is crystallized for itself out of the fluid-mass according to the laws developed in the theory of crystallization, in every point of the fluid a globe of crystallizing forces being constituted, that generated the constituent forms.
548. The earth (regarded as planet, not as element) has during its coagulation into a solid nucleus, generated an infinity of polar spheres, as every polar line consists of an infinite vicissitude of poles.
549. These integral crystals have originated only in drops of water; for then only was an infinite multitude of polar axes and polar radii separated from each other. Water in infinitely numerous drops is rain. In the primary rain each drop crystallized, and each fell towards the centre, because the primary water ranged over a vast extent. The granular rock has originated in and out of rain. It is crystallized rain.
550. It does not follow from this, that the earth should be an accidental accumulation of small crystals, which, by the rotation of the planet, formed themselves mechanically into a spheroid. As in small crystals the infinity of poles reunites to constitute some principal polarities, so also is this the case with the globe of the earth; this results from its genesis whereby it is present in a definite space, and hence coheres or hangs together as one piece. The earth is only one small punctule of contraction wrought in æther-space by the agency of light. Again, it was without doubt a single central tension, which, occurring upon a large scale, attracted together all the particles of æther, and from that circumstance arranged them also. It was probably magnetism, which is so intimately connected with the rotation of the earth's axis, or the conflict of magnetism in its interior with the electricity upon its surface, which was active in the condensation and arrangement of the masses.
551. This arrangement of the parts of the earth, upon a large scale, is a regulation of its constituent forms. The adjusting forces are, however, those that operate through the whole sphere, and are thus linear and spherical at one and the same time. By these the laminæ of the nucleus were determined. The constituent forms of the earth are consequently arranged in laminæ. What in the crystal is called the cleavage of the laminæ, is in the earth stratification. The strike of the strata combined with their dip determines the crystal nucleus of the earth.
552. The strike and dip of the strata happened without doubt according to definite laws of crystallization, and has by no means been resigned to elevating force, mechanical dislocation, or even to chance.
553. On this very account the two directions of the earth's laminæ cannot have a similar bearing over the whole earth. They can only have a long tract extending in the same direction in individual mountain-chains. This does not, however, exclude a parallel strike and dip occurring in some wholly different quarter of the world; it must indeed occur, and in such instances we meet with the opposing sides or edges of the earth's nucleus.
554. The earth has without doubt originated according to the laws of the polyhedron, which represents in the nearest manner the globe. The polyhedron of the globe is the rhomboidal dodecahedron.
555. The land cannot therefore have an equal elevation everywhere above the water, because the crystal consists of edges, angles, and surfaces or sides. The mountain tops are probably the angles, the mountain ridges or chains the edges, the plains the lateral surfaces of the crystal.
556. Several mountain-chains run parallel, but interrupted, with the equator. This parallelism extends to the most temperate zones. Then follow oblique mountain-chains, as the Carpathian, Alps, Pyrenees. Lastly, mountain-chains pass from the poles to the equator, as the Sewo, Ural and Altai mountains. Subordinate mountain-chains unite the latter transversely and the former in the direction of the meridian. The earth is probably a regular net of crystal edges and angles, and thus of crystal surfaces also.
PRIMARY VALLEYS.
557. Although the earth may be regarded as originally a crystal, that consists of level surfaces, edges and angles, wide fissures may still have originated between its laminæ, such as we see in large crystals of felspar. These fissures or gaps are the primary valleys.
558. There must be therefore valleys or parallel valleys, which probably extend for hundreds of miles, and are many miles deep—Longitudinal valleys.
559. The laminæ of the earth had without doubt transverse fissures, which have been called hidden passages. These transverse fissures are the transverse valleys, which are consequently less long and deep.
560. The mountains originate of themselves. They do not properly originate, but valleys only originate, and the ridges of the crystal laminæ afford the mountains. The mountains have not been originally upheaved above the surface of the earth, nor the valleys depressed. A valley, which is several miles broad, must originally have been several miles deep, and the mountain wall consequently several miles high. The earth at its origin was a cloven and jagged polyhedron, a polyhedric star, such as the moon is still.
561. The mountains are not therefore large crystals, which crystallized above the surface of the earth. They are only crystal laminæ, and may be as irregular as possible in form; for they are ruptured crystals.
562. The water, which from the beginning had covered the polyhedron, now sunk into the primary valleys. From the water resulted new and final crystallizations, and these deposited themselves in the valleys, upon the level ground and the flanks of the mountains; and thus the fathomless primary valleys have been in part filled up. There are no longer any primary valleys upon the earth.
563. After the water was once confined in narrow canals, it must begin to flow, and by the force of its current many a steep primary wall must have fallen in, been crumbled into ruins, and either been left upon the spot or washed away—Diluvial drift rocks (Trümmersteine), Nagelfluhe, Stratified rocks.
564. The principal direction of the water was formerly, as it is even now, determined by the rotation of the earth; it flowed therefore from east to west under the equator, from north-east to south-west in our temperate zones, and pretty well from the north or from the poles toward the equator in the frigid zones.
565. The primary valleys, which had originated in these directions, were more excavated by aqueous agency than those which ran in other directions, new valleys being also produced; the mountain chains therefore upon the earth agree in the main with the water courses, and, though not generated from, have been certainly changed in character by, the latter. Such must be our conclusion, if in the formation of the earth nothing but crystallization be taken into consideration. Condensation alone brings yet other phenomena along with it.
566. The first and most important of these is the elevation of temperature. We cannot think otherwise than at the first precipitation of the earthy a number of huge cavities remained in the interior of the earth, which were filled with water. This being heated, was converted into steam, which thrust up the superincumbent rock, and converted it into new mountains or mountain-chains. These agencies of heat may be called primary volcanoes, although they are not to be confounded with volcanoes proper.
567. The igneous cavities were probably placed in a certain order, according with the original edges and angles of the earth's body. They may have therefore thrown up mountain tops and chains.
568. But the cavities, besides raising mountain chains, could just as well depress or allow them to sink in, and thus produce valleys. By these means the seas have probably been formed. Like the seas so also have the inland seas or lakes originated.
569. Lastly, a similar origin must be ascribed to the world-sea or ocean. Many earthquakes arose, with all their concomitant phenomena, by partial and sudden falling in of the deep descending cavities of the earth. Frequently that which fell in was again driven out by the expansive force of the suddenly compressed air.
2. Organs of the Planet.
570. The principal mass or body of the planet is formed by the earths proper, as being the typical or genuine representatives of the earth-element. The other classes, as the metallic minerals or ores, the Inflammables, and salts, are to be regarded only as viscera of this body. If we take a circumspective glance at the planet, we cannot fail to recognize this remarkable relation, that it is properly the elemental families only of the earths that form the mountain masses, while the other families are only scattered within them, like the glands in an animal body. Let us again place the Families in tabular contrast with each other.
| SILICIOUS, | ARGILLACEOUS, | TALCOSE and | CALCAREOUS-EARTHS. | |
| A. | Earth-silices. | Earth-clays. | Earth-talcs. | Earth-calces. |
| Fam. | 1. Quartz. | 1. Felspar. | 1. Mica. | 1. Lapis-lazuli. |
| 2. Zircon. | 2. Sapphire. | 2. Sappharine. | 2. Mesotype. | |
| 3. Emerald. | 3. Ruby. | 3. Talc. | 3. Stellite. | |
| 4. Leucite. | 4. Epidote. | 4. Angite. | 4. Tabular-spar. | |
| 5. Topaz. | 5. Schorl. | 5. Hornblende. | 5. Boracite. | |
| 6. Diamond. | 6. Azurite. | 6. Asbestus. | 6. Phosphorite. | |
| 7. Garnet. | 7. Harmotone. | 7. Olivine. | 7. Titanite. | |
| B. | Water-silices. | Water-clays. | Water-talcs. | Water-calces. |
| 8. Hornstone. | 8. Clay-slate. | 8. Serpentine. | 8. Hydrophyllite. | |
| C. | Air-silices. | Air-clays. | Air-talcs. | Air-calces. |
| 9. Tripoli. | 9. Clay-stone. | 9. Lithomarge. | 9. Gypsum. | |
| D. | Fire-silices. | Fire-clays. | Fire-talcs. | Fire-calces. |
| 10. Obsidian. | 10. Lava. | 10. Basalt. | 10. Limestone. |
571. Now we here observe that only Quartz, Hornstone, Tripoli and Obsidian, occur as mineral aggregates in large masses, while all the others are only rare precious stones. Among the Clays, only Felspar, Clay-Slate, Hornstone and Lava. Among the Talcs, only Mica, Serpentine, Lithomarge, and Basalt. Among the Calcareous-earths, which incline towards the nature of salts, all the first families are of rare occurrence, and the latter only appear as mineral masses. This regularity speaks moreover retrospectively in favour of the correctness of the classification. The families have thus the same import or value in Geology as in Oryctognosy.
572. The proper organs of the planet are the mineral aggregates or rocks. These are either presented to us as they have originally been precipitated from water by chemical process, or as they have been changed by the co-operation of the other elements. There are thus genetic and metamorphosed kinds of rock. The former were crystallized previous to the current of the water—Primary rocks. These rocks are changed either—
1. By water—Transition-rocks, or
2. By air—Trappean-rocks.
3. By fire—Volcanic-rocks.
There are properly four kinds of rock formations—
1. Earth-formation, masses that have originated through the crystallizing
force of the earth-element itself—Primary-rocks.
2. Aqueous-formation—Transition-rocks.
3. Aerial-formation—Trappean-rocks.
4. Igneous-formation—Volcanic-rocks.
The stratified rocks, having originated for the most part mechanically, are only the object of Physio-philosophy, in so far as chemical precipitations partly occur amongst them.
573. The earth-formation is represented by the crystallized primary rocks.
a. Earth-Formation.
574. The earths can only be precipitations from the element that immediately precedes them, and thus from water. They have been enveloped in the water, as this has been in the air, and the latter again in the æther, but not mechanically, as we at present dissolve clay in water, nor chemically either, as lime dissolves by corrosion in water, but dynamically. The water did not exist from the beginning as water in the air, but only its principles, which became for the first time water, when they had combined by electricity.
575. Even so was it the case with the earths. The primary water, which was present prior to the solid nucleus of the earth, is not the water, with which we are at present acquainted; it had still the earthy principles, the basic in itself, which being separated by a differencing act from the oxygenous of the water, was deposited as carbon specially produced. No calcareous, argillaceous, and silicious earth was imbedded in the primary water. How then could they have been dissolved in it? Some say, by a great quantity of acids which prevailed at that time; but from whence then did these acids come? The largest quantity of them resides in lime, gypsum, and common salt; but how could this quantity, which has not so much as acidified all the calcareous earth, have held the rest of the earths in solution? And then again are all the earths soluble by the process of acidification? We cannot reason in geogeny, as we would of a common chemical precipitation, where we precipitate earths that have been dissolved by elective affinities.
576. The earths originated for the first time, when they were separated from the primary water. The instant of their precipitation was also the instant of their generation, even as rain is, or rather was, a production of the water. It is easy to say that the earths had been dissolved in the water, and were then precipitated by elective affinities. But it is absurd to rest content with such an assertion. The chief question still remains; how did the earthy originate, before the earth was? Every one can say how that which had already originated, and was only suspended in water, was precipitated. But we are in the habit of distinguishing the several earths, before having taken a survey of matters and inquired if earths then existed.
577. It must not, however, be thought, that all had happened in a gradual manner; that air was first converted into water, and lastly, after a lapse of some thousand years, the latter again into earth, without with the one element the principles conducting to the others being already and necessarily imparted. No, everything has been granted and determined at one stroke, even as with the impregnation of the ovum all the organs of the future embryo are determined, although they first develop themselves gradually. The same agent, which creates the air solicits also its two principles unto combustion in the water; and the same act, which separates the oxygen gas out of the air as water, separates also the carbon from it to constitute earth. Not one can be posited, without the other being codetermined.
578. The analysing principle cannot be a something internal residing in the planet itself. But all that it is, it is through antagonism with the sun. This antagonism is light. This it is that divorces or separates the elements from their matrix; it is light, which has sundered the æther into the twofold air, and the air again into the denser elements, water and earth, separating the oxygen from the nitrogen and later on from the carbon, which must be taken up in water as an oxide.
579. At the commencement of the separation the fluid must be the first to emerge, because the cohesion or fixation of the poles is possible only in a successive manner, yet not as if water were according to its determination to be the first and the Earthy the second in the order of production. As the oxygen separated from the air to create water, so also must the carbon that was left have been precipitated from the water and metamorphosed into earth. Thence and thence only may we venture to say, that the earths originated out of water; for, properly speaking, they arose as absolutely for themselves as air and water; but as air succeeded æther, and water air, so did the earth the water.
580. Whatever be the bulk of the mass of water, to the same extent is the Earthy, or the germ of the Earthy, diffused throughout it. The whole is a fluid mass of earth. Light, however, penetrates the mass of water as a transparent body. As translucency is not a mechanical but a dynamic act, or process of differentialization in matter; so does this earth-water become separated into a mass of oxygen and carbon, or into ordinary water and into the earth-element.
581. The genesis of the earths is a process of conduction of light. All transparency is a formation of earth; for it is a separation of the Aqueous from the body of gravity. Where non-transparency exists, there has earth been already formed.
582. As the conducting process of light is an act of deoxydation, so are the earths at the same time also deoxydized by precipitation, and this in four stages which indicate the elements whereby light operates upon the Basic in water; or it might be said, by the four colours of, or by coloured, light. We already know that the earth, which presents in itself the most dismembered character is the calcareous earth; but that those which have preserved a more identical character in themselves are the silicious, argillaceous, and talcose earths. These earths may be viewed as those in which the lime has absorbed a proportion of oxygen, which has in it become carbonic acid. There is indeed only one earth-substance in water. In this substance, which is neither silex nor calx, the polar principle has distributed itself, and that very portion, which has obtained the most thereof, has become calcareous earth.
583. The calcareous earth has originated in the upper parts of the aqueous globe, the other earths, however, in the depths, in the middle of that globe; for in the upper regions of the water, the light can exert a greater polarizing influence, and therefore that very earth is generated which stands nearest to the æther or to the light, viz. the different calcareous earth. But in the depths of the water, the light loses its energy, and is no longer in a condition to elicit the Oxygenous in the Basic; thereby identical and more fixed earths originate.
GRANULAR ROCK OR GRANITE.
584. The differenced calcareous earth has been associated with the differential water, remained for a longer period identical with and dissolved in it, and was therefore the last to be precipitated from it. The silicious earth with its neighbours must necessarily have been the first to separate from the water, as it is in a proper sense, that earth from which all water has been withdrawn. Two periods of precipitation exist therefore in geogeny, one that of the identical or fundamental earths, and one of the internally subdivided calcareous earths.
585. The silicious, argillaceous, and talcose earths must occupy, from their having been first precipitated, the middle of the planet. The water being earthy everywhere, had everywhere the capacity to become earth; but different earths originated, where the light was different in the fluid mass of earth. In pure light, or that upon the surface, the Earthy dualized itself into calcareous earth; in situations, where the light exercised less influence, the Earthy became talcose, still deeper argillaceous earth; lastly, at such a depth where the light could scarcely reach, the Earthy became a pure Earthy or silicious earth.
586. Precipitation, both upon a large and small scale, is a process of crystallization; the integral parts of the planet originate, like the nucleus and the perfected crystal, through central action and polar action. The integral forms of the planet impart the crystalline granule or its joints.
587. The integral forms of the three fundamental earths crystallized with and through each other into one mass, or, in other words, the nucleus of the earth consists of a crystalline mass of the three fundamental earths. The solid nucleus of the earth consists of crystals upon a small scale of silex, clay, and talc.
588. As, however, no pole is produced of perfect purity in nature, so are the integral forms not perfectly pure fundamental earths, but other and later factors enter also into their composition, e. g. calcareous earth, with even ores and salts. The silicious earth is crystallized as quartz, the argillaceous as feldspar, the talc as mica.
589. The mixture of the three crystallized fundamental earths, which composes the nucleus of the earth, and upon which the polarized masses of soil have been supported, is therefore a definite species of rock, which has all the properties of Granite, although that which has been extruded from the earth may have been altered by heat.
590. As the mass of the earth is about five times denser than water; so must the planet, before the Earthy was separated, have been much denser than at present. With its separation the fluid must have suddenly diminished, and moved towards the middle point of the planet. During the descent of water for many miles in extent, it must separate in drops. The separation of the earths was combined with rain.
591. In every falling drop the three fundamental earths, which are insoluble in water, crystallized. The first crystals therefore are only of the size of drops. It is only by this mode of origin that the crystallization into one another of the three constituent parts of granite without any cementing substance can be comprehended. Granite is an earthy hail-storm. The hail-stones crystallized during their fall in a similar manner with each other.
592. Upon the whole the silicious character predominates in granite, as the primary formation of the planet, and must do so, for silicious earth is the primary earth, the principal earth of this precipitation, and one from which clay and talc subsequently proceed, being higher heterogynisms produced by light. Properly speaking only two perfectly different characters of earth exist, the silicious earth as the pure separation of the Earthy, and the calcareous earth, as the last separation of the water from the Earthy. It may also be said that in the calcareous earth fire, in the talcose earths the air, in the argillaceous earth water has exercised its influence and displaced the Earthy. Not only quartz is silicious earth, but feldspar and mica consist in a great measure of the same. Still, however, these last two constituent forms are wholly different from quartz, and very far removed from the nature of silex; the feldspar obviously forming the transition to clay by its resolution into porcellanic earths, but the mica passing over into talc.
593. There does not exist in nature an order of silex, clay, or talc, so soon as we take up these earths in a simply chemical manner. Nature instead of silex produces quartz, instead of clay feldspar, instead of talc mica; and these must be the earths, that determine this part of the mineral system; they are the characters of orders; there is thus properly no order of silex but of quartz, none of clay but of feldspar, none of talc but of mica, at least according to their signification.
594. The points of origin for this division of the mineral system or that formed by the fundamental earths are the three fundamental crystallizations, and upon these everything that does not belong to the calcareous earth must and does naturally arrange itself. The mineral system is only the developed and separated granite. The fact cannot rest unobserved, that mica has only one laminar cleavage, feldspar two, quartz three, this being for the first time a perfect crystal, a double tetrahedron with one column.
595. With granite and with it alone the solidity, the body and form of the earth has been given; it is the homogeneous fundamental mass of the planet, and is therefore crystallized throughout to the finest degree in its three constituent forms.
GNEISS AND MICA-SCHIST.
596. If, in addition to granite, several formations are displayed which bear traces of the same mode of origin, of the same component parts and the same aggregation, it may be inferred that they are only metamorphoses of the same precipitate. Granite is the basis of geogeny.
597. Granite is a totality for the earth, it is a representation of the three terrestrial elements under the form of identical earth; it is the earth represented in silex, water in clay, and air in talc; it is an universe represented individually in the earth-elements.
598. The granite can undergo metamorphosis in only three ways; for its essence is indeed only trinity. Nothing can individualize itself from granite but quartz, feldspar, and mica. All the formations of this period are thus quartz, feldspar, or mica formations. The granite appears under a threefold form as quartz, feldspar, and mica-granite.
599. The first quartz formation is properly the granite itself, and its character will be also the determinant for all the metamorphoses of quartz—quartz-granite.
600. The first structure, in which the character of feldspar as regards its laminated form and its more argillaceous nature obtains the preponderance, is Gneiss—Feldspar-granite.
601. The first structure in which mica is the predominant character, is the Mica-schist—Mica-granite.
602. All rocks that do not belong to the calcareous formation come under these three forms. The progressive formation of the earth takes a threefold course, since it begins in a threefold and yet single manner in granite.
603. The gneiss and mica-schist precipitations followed subsequently to the completion of granite. For all precipitation is a true process, in which water has a certain tension peculiar to this process, by virtue of which this form of earth and no other has been produced.
604. By granite the silicious principally came out of water, but what was argillaceous and talcose remained behind.
605. Gneiss and mica-schist are indeed subdivided granite, but not in the sense of the already perfected granite having been again stirred up and dissolved, but as already separated in principles, in the primary water.
606. Gneiss and mica-schists are products of a more mighty operation of light than granite. They are nearer to the upper layers of water.
607. After the granitic rain, or after the formation of granite, the sphere of water was no longer perfectly transparent; but water was now found also in the primary valleys, in which the light had more power, and thus greater capacity for splitting. During the formation of granite the water has only become polar by light; but, as it was there wholly transparent without opposition, it could never attain to a perfect dualization. In the second earth-rain and in the valleys, the light on the contrary produces dualization of the fundamental earths, since the sides of the mountains afford opposition to the light, become themselves polar against the water, and at the same time heat is produced.
608. Gneiss and mica-schist enter into a polar relation with gravity, and that indeed as a Different to an Identical, as periphery to centre or as light to gravity.
609. Now the falling granite had in part lost its quartz and obtained a predominance of feldspar. Furthermore as the water-globe was already greatly collapsed, the crystals thus originated in larger drops, and occurred besides in water already stagnant or flowing. The schistose gefüge must have emerged as well through the preponderance of the laminar felspar, as by the flowing of water and the attraction of the granite-walls. This schistose granite is gneiss.
610. When the gneiss was thrown down the talc predominated in the water; it now fell in the same manner with less quartz and feldspar, and was deposited in a still more schistose form than mica-schist.
611. Granite, gneiss and mica-schist are the first that together form a Whole, each factor whereof has been evolved in an equally perfect manner.
LAMINATION.
612. By this active antagonism of granite to gneiss and mica-schist the Lamination of the latter is determined. Every particle of gneiss is attracted from the granite-wall and placed in a definite direction, corresponding to the polar operation of granite; the particles of gneiss already deposited attract the coming ones, and so on. The parts of the gneiss and mica-schist are not deposited upon the granite by virtue of their dead or inert gravity, but by virtue of living polar attraction. They are not therefore deposited in the depth of the primary valleys, nor do they fill up the latter; but they are attracted by the granite-walls and deposited to a greater or less extent like laminæ of crystallization, in large perpendicular layers.
613. By these two precipitations the primary valleys were in part filled up, and partly narrowed by the polar attraction of the walls. The primary valleys therefore are no longer present upon the earth, unless everything be called a primary valley that has not arisen or been excavated by the current of water.
614. Gneiss and mica-schist have indeed taken part in the primary crystallization, yet are, however, only its last movements, as the water had already met with resistance, and was partly stagnant; their mass therefore is not so purely crystallized as granite. They are not parts of the earth's nucleus, but lie only like a crust upon it like hollow crystals.
615. It may be said that gneiss and mica-schist originated only because there were fathomless valleys in the granite, in which the dissevering actions were inclosed, and extended themselves from one mountain-wall to another, while the light could be reflected in them and heat the earth.
616. So long as the granite was devoid of valleys, so long also did no other formation originate. This is proved by the fact that upon the highest mountains the granite is bare and uncovered, while this is not the case upon its lateral walls. It is therefore the second and third earth-rain that first originated, after the earth was heated. Gneiss and mica-schist are, so to speak, precipitated by reflected light.
617. The principal valleys of gneiss and mica-schist have not originated by themselves, but have been modelled according to the form of the granitic valleys. The valleys of those earth-precipitates are properly only subsequent valleys.
618. The lamination is not everywhere a mechanical phenomenon, but without doubt also a polar. It is exactly the same law, which determines the lamination of crystals, that does that of the strata of the earth, and operates also in producing their lamination.
PRIMARY LIMESTONE.
619. The earths must be viewed as one mass, the component parts of which observe a mutual relation. Now, after the silex, clay and talc had been precipitated, a proportionate abundance of lime became free, which was then thrown down at the end of this period of precipitation, as Primary limestone.
620. The calcareous mass may be viewed as corrosive earth, from which a certain quantity of carbon has been set free. As such, and combined with the oxygen developed out of the water by the influence of light to form carbonic acid, the lime was insoluble and was precipitated.
621. The primary limestone has also not been mechanically deposited. It has a crystalline texture, is a calcareous granite, and generally succeeds the mica-schist formation.
b. Water-Formation—Transition-Rocks.
METAMORPHOSIS OF THE PRIMARY PRECIPITATIONS.
622. The metamorphosis of the granite did not terminate with these precipitations. They are only the starting points for the metamorphosis, in which the effort was first manifested to free themselves from the primary combination. In the metamorphosis of earths, the fundamental earths, or the constituent parts of granite, strove to become each for itself a particular rock. They were all identified in quartz; in granite they for the first time parted company with each other, yet still formed a common sphere; lastly, in gneiss and mica-schist they all separated into three spheres, but which still did not differ in mass from granite.
623. Individualization had not yet been attained. The gneiss had still all the constituent parts of the granite, as well as the mica-schist; both are only a more peripheric, slaty granite, the one having a preponderance of the Argillaceous, the other of the Talcose. With these formations, however, Geogeny cannot remain stationary; for verily the law of the development of the world is individualization. Instead of granite, simply quartz, instead of gneiss simply clay, instead of mica-schist simply talc must be separated; and then the termination of this period is attained, the trinity of the simple earths has been completely represented.
624. All the Earthy could not have been separated from the water by the first storm of precipitation. For the water now rested very much collapsed upon the earth's nucleus, and could no longer therefore assume the form of rain. That therefore which was now precipitated could no longer be thoroughly crystallized, but must follow the current and disquietude of the water, and thus emerge from it in a slaty or massive condition.
625. The quartz of the granite endeavours to set itself free from the clay and talc, or it becomes freed by the latter removing from it in virtue of its polar behaviour. There is therefore one series of rocks, in which the granite is constantly rejecting the feldspar and mica more and more, and at last subsists as quartz simply, which quartzose rocks as forming entire mountains are for intelligible reasons not of frequent occurrence.
626. The completion of the gneiss in its entire separation from the granite, and the evolution of feldspar upon a large scale constitutes the clay-slate, and finally clay-stone and clay-porphyry. This yields us a new series of formations, in which the gneiss gradually attains to being divested of quartz and mica and to a pure position as feldspar. The clay-slate is a true gneiss, that has lost the definite particles of quartz and mica.
627. The position of mica-schist constitutes in its purity the talc-formation, talc-slate, chlorite-slate, hornblende-slate.
628. After these several precipitations, the calcareous mass remains behind in the water, and now, as in the first periods of crystallization, is charged with carbonic acid, and is precipitated as transitionary calx under the form of mountain limestone.
629. These formations are found upon the whole to be arranged on the earth, in the order of time at which they were precipitated from the water. In the middle of the loftiest mountains is granite, then gneiss and mica-schist; then follow quartzose rocks, clay-slate or porphyry, talcose rocks, and lastly on the edge of all these runs the chain of alpine or mountain limestone. In the last of these formations are found fossil remains of corals and molluscous animals. For these formations fell first of all after the water had a solid bottom, and the granitic mountains projected above it.
SEDIMENTARY OR STRATIFIED ROCKS.
630. The period had now arrived in which the fundamental earths, being upon the whole completed, predominate. That which was separated in a chemical way from the Earthy out of water, has been in great part precipitated. This period, however, although the first and most extensive, indicates but the half of Geogeny, or as yet only one pole in the genesis, which requires the other. In the beginning both poles were in the water, that of the fundamental earths as well as that of the calcareous earth; the light shone upon, dissevered them, and earths, the most heterogeneous in respect to water, were first of all precipitated.
631. While the fundamental earths were precipitated, the calcareous earth was repelled and retained, on account of its homogeneity, in water, because the acid half continued longer fluid than the basic. The water was thus after its separation from these substances a true limewater.
632. Through this separation, however, the great antagonism in the water ceased; and subordinate antagonisms now made their appearance, which were kept united by the former. The calcareous earth is now occupied no more as one pole, but is the whole water itself, upon which, as it is less deep, the light acts anew and with greater force.
633. The dispersions of earths began just at this period to multiply themselves, from the only fettering agent, namely gravity, having betaken itself to rest; every earthy now emerges from its connexions, the factors falling wholly asunder into alkalies and acids, which combine in a multifarious manner.
634. These dispersions associated with the torrents of water that were now everywhere present prevented crystallization from taking place upon a large scale; they moreover mingled with the mechanically water-borne and crumbling débris of the earlier species of rocks; their laminations therefore resemble rather a mechanical deposit from water. They are the Stratified rocks.
635. As the first period must include the calcareous earth, so also in the period of strata or in the dualized period this earth is not without a slight antagonism of the fundamental earths; and this it is which for the first time becomes distinct, but always with a preponderance of the calcareous over the fundamental earths, while in the primary periods this relative proportion of the two was the reverse.
636. The primary period repeats itself again in the second, and thus strata consisting of the fundamental earths originate, as we have seen exemplified in the primary and transition formations of limestone. The precipitation of strata is divided also into four formations, into silicious, argillaceous, talcose and calcareous strata, close to which range also the strata of ores, Inflammables and salts.
637. In other respects the chemical deposits of this period are so blended with the mechanical, that their mode of origin seems for the most part to have happened in both ways.
638. The silicious formation returning in the stratified periods is chiefly under the condition of sandstone. Apart from that, which has originated through the detritus of the older kinds of rocks, it may be assumed, that the prevailing lime still held some silicious earth in a state of moisture within itself, and that this during its separation was precipitated as a fine alcohol, namely, as sand. If, however, sand fell, so also must a proportionate quantity of lime fall, by combining itself with an acid. Sand and lime therefore usually accompany each other. If the two be regarded also as only floated freely and suspended in water, still the chemical antagonism manifests itself between them as if they were in a mortar, and they have been precipitated in layers alternating with each other. The sandstone is as a rule therefore imbedded in the lime; it is a mortar containing but little lime. The mechanical silicious deposits are exemplified in the Nagelfluh, old red sandstone, Grauwacke, sandstone and drift-sand.
639. The stratified clay appears to have been deposited as clay-stone; it passes over into slate and potters' clay. The talcose strata pass by serpentine and potters' stone into steatite and meerschaum.
STRATIFIED LIMESTONE.
640. The pole which had operated continuously from the fundamental earths contained in the Earthy has now separated from it, and the tension is again extinguished. The Earthy is now contained in a pure state in water without continuance of the silicious pole; the influx of water has now obtained the preponderance. So soon, however, as the antagonism of this water to the stratified silex, clay and talc ceases, the more internal, hitherto restrained by the feebler antagonism, becomes awakened, as it did after the precipitation of the fundamental earths.
641. The principles are necessarily combined more firmly in the fundamental than in the calcareous earths. In this both the oxygenic and basic earth-principle must each attain for itself completion, and represent the two primary bodies in the earth with the same capacity for separation and activity.
642. The production of earths results from a constant antagonism subsisting between them and water. The more the Basic is thrown down, by so much does the Oxygenous preponderate to a greater degree in water. The water becomes oxydized and seeks to divide into its two principles, into oxygen and hydrogen.
643. By this contest tension is also excited in the earth-principles, namely, oxygen and carbon, and they begin in themselves to separate. The metallic basis of the earths strives to become free. During the separation, however, the oxygen snatches as it were some carbon along with it and appears as carbonic acid; but the carbon of the earthy lays claim to some of the hydrogen and oxygen to combine with it and appears as corrosive or calcareous earth.
644. The acid is therefore a half of the earth, which passes over into water, and the corrosive earth is also a half of the earth that has lost its Aqueous. The former is the Aqueous in the earths, the latter the Earthy itself separated from the former.
645. The corrosive force is therefore no peculiar action in nature, but only the effort made by the earths to complete themselves and imbibe water or acid. The corrosive force is no synthesis, but a moiety.
646. A total earth may be therefore regarded as a combination of acid and corrosive body. These two component parts are separable in the calcareous and talcose earths; but in the argillaceous and silicious earths they are so intimately dissolved, that they can not be separated from each other.
647. Carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen, but not oxygen, fall or range upon the corrosive side of the earth in question.
648. Regarded in this general manner the corrosive principle stands opposite to the principle of combustion, and what is combustible, is in idea corrosive. The corrosive power is, however, but feeble in the gaseous nitrogen, stronger in hydrogen and finally strongest in the body of earth. The earthy carbon is the proper corrosive principle. The direct antagonism is not therefore between the corrosive body and oxygen, but between it and the carbonic acid, and therefore between it and all the acids, or acidity generally. The last earthy antagonism is that between the corrosive body and acid.
649. The corrosive body regarded specially as simply a pure earthy body, must stand opposite to the two moveable elements. The corrodent is therefore constantly striving to draw water and air into itself, and upon this depend also the effects produced by the corroding matters. The corrosive calcareous earth acts in a destructive manner, it abstracts water and air from bodies. The action of the corrosive body is a deprivation of water and air, and hence the elevated temperature of burnt lime in water. If again the corrosive lime be full of water and air, it is neutralized. It is now forsooth again a total earth, in a mechanical sense being again provided with water and acid. All earths are an equal or identical mixture. Acids and alkalies are thus to be regarded in this respect as moieties, and thereupon their chemical relation appears to depend. The elemental bodies are desirous to complete themselves. If therefore a base stands in corresponding import with a certain acid, it will thus have a greater affinity for the latter, tending to separate it from some other combination. Upon this principle, which has indeed been hitherto unknown to exist, the grades of affinity appear to depend.
650. As regards the mode of occurrence of the calcareous earth, it also is not of so mechanical a nature as is generally supposed. Its legitimate relation to sandstone and other precipitations, speak against that. But crystallization has for the most part disappeared in it; and it is only in cavities that crystals shoot out, like the ores in metallic veins. In granite the commencement is crystal, but in lime it is the termination; crystallization determines the character in granite, in calx or lime, however, the crystals are only blossoms.
651. The calcareous earth multiplies itself as a reduction of the earth of gravity and that indeed three times. There exists, so to speak, a corrosive silicious as also argillaceous and talcose earth. The three corrosive earths are calcareous earth, strontian and baryta, or it may be said that the first would be salt, the second Inflammable, and the third, metal.
652. Still a polar separation emerges in the stratified calx, while the two earth-principles become more individualized. The carbonate of lime ranks on the lowest stage. In this, however, the differencing process of light had not remained stationary, but elevated the carbon to a higher grade; carburetted hydrogen and sulphur originate in the calcareous earth combined as gypsum, with oxygen.
653. It may be said, that calx were decomposed into alkali and carbon; water into oxygen and acid. Carbon and oxygen become carbonic acid in limestone. Carbons and hydrogen become sulphur, combined with oxygen sulphuric acid in gypsum. Hydrogen and oxygen become hydrochloric acid in common salt.
654. Gypsum is to be regarded as a calcareous earth, which is inflammable in character, as the fundamental earths were metallic. The philosophical essence of gypsum consists not in its oxydation by sulphuric acid, but in the combination of calcareous earth with sulphur, as occurs in that of iron-spar with iron; in this combination, however, the carbonic acid has still remained, whereby the sulphur became acid. The gypsum was therefore a carbonaceo-sulphate of lime, an oxydized metal with a very large proportion of calcareous earth.
655. Gypsum and chalk are related polarwise to each other, separate during the general precipitation, and are deposited opposite to, or alternately upon, each other.
656. In fluor-spar, apatite and boracite the last differentialization of lime and carbonic acid is lost. The principal masses are the carbonate and sulphate of lime.
657. The strata of the Inflammables, such as of pit-coal, and of the ores, as of iron, calamine, appear to have originated in simply a mechanical manner.
REPEATED SEDIMENTARY PRECIPITATIONS.
658. The precipitating process is a process of polarization, which comprises several stages. In it there are moments of time.
659. If the fluid mass be large, this polarization will then require considerable time to penetrate throughout it.
660. The polarizing process will issue from a definite point, which is different from water, and thus form the point upon which the light operates with greatest force.
661. This is solid ground. During the calcareous precipitation, there was no other ground present save that of the mountain tops. It was thus from these that the calcareous precipitation set out.
662. With each precipitation a greater number of mountain tops made their appearance, because the water sank; for the calcareous earth is about three times denser than water.
663. Such being the conditions belonging to the sedimentary periods, several consecutive centuries characterized by precipitations with repeated recessions and elevations of the water, elapsed and have left evidence of the time thus consumed.
664. The recession of the water was not always an ebbing or sinking in, but a diminution or disappearance of the same, like the water in a glass lessens in quantity, or becomes thoroughly solid, if salt crystallizes therein.
665. By such precipitations whole basins of land became dry or freed from sea-water. Streams therefore of fresh water originated, and with them corresponding organizations.
666. These streams gradually filled the basins and formed seas. As the seas coalesced by the constantly descending water, an inland sea arose.
667. This inland sea became again salidified, and that indeed of itself by the influence of light and the dissolution of the salt-banks, which were not overflown. Such is still the Caspian sea and others of that kind. In these marine plants and animals could again originate.
668. Thereupon new precipitations of salt succeeded, the gypsum and calx being again dissolved, and consequently diminutions also of water, whereby rivers again originated. One and the same basin of land was alternately covered with fresh and saline water.
669. Marine and fresh-water animals could therefore originate and perish alternately. And this is the explanation of the fact why banks inclosing both kinds of animals are found above and below each other.
670. An alternating ingress of the sea is not therefore necessary in all cases to explain the occurrence of marine fossil remains. Such an assumption is also wholly inconceivable. Nor is alternating elevation and depression of the soil necessary to the explanation of this phenomenon.
671. During the time of precipitation the temperature of the water and consequently of the earth and air also was necessarily raised. All creatures, which then originated, must correspond therefore to those of warmer climates.
672. The fossil remains do not require the assumption of a change having taken place in the inclination or bearing of the earth's axis; nor of a heating of the surface by a fiery interior.
673. With every later precipitation other animals and plants must originate, because the temperature and also the mixture of water was changed. The fossils therefore indicate the age of the sedimentary strata.
674. During the last precipitations the creatures of colder climates must have originated.
675. Land animals cannot, or but rarely, be found in the sedimentary strata, if even they had already been in existence prior to their formation. For the inundations did not break in suddenly, but the water rose by degrees. They had time therefore to retire to the high grounds.
676. Land plants may, on the contrary, lie in the sedimentary strata, because of their inability to escape.
677. The bones of birds and men must be found least of all fossilized, because a retreat by them was most easily effected. It does not follow, from our not finding them, that they have not existed.
678. The different fossil remains have therefore not simply lived, where they are found, but originated there also. Some of course may have been floated also to these localities.
679. The inundations of water were in general necessary, because basins of land and precipitations were everywhere present; but not all on that account at the same time.
680. In this sense there was a general flood, a deluge, namely, for every land.
c. Air-formation.
TRAP-ROCKS.
681. Vapours and gases of different kinds may be contained in the interior of the earth in two ways, either chemically combined as carbonic acid, or mechanically inclosed in cavities of the earth. Both may be developed, or expanded by calefaction, and the latter by diminution of pressure.
682. If those that are chemically combined be developed by calefaction, they then form vesicular spaces in the masses of earth whereby the latter are extended and raised above the surface; such as amygdaloid, basalt and others of this kind.
683. Warm springs may originate by subterraneous processes, chemical or volcanic; probably, too, by the compression of air that has forced its way into these situations.
684. Earthquakes may indeed originate in different ways; as in addition to the falling in of cavities, by the chemical development also of gases, by their subjection to heat, by aqueous vapours, and also by the sudden diminution of pressure upon these incarcerated gases.
685. This diminution of pressure proceeds from sudden rarefaction of the atmosphere—due probably to the disappearance of air in a particular place, or resulting from a change of the wind, or the formation of heavy rain. Earthquakes can therefore extend through many countries, without requiring to depend upon each other or on a common focus of action.
686. The silicious trap is silicious sinter, tripoli and polierschiefer.
687. The argillaceous trap, amygdaloid, clinkstone, several porphyries.
688. The talcose trap, basalt.
689. The calcareous trap, probably chalk.
d. Fire-formation.
VOLCANIC-ROCKS.
690. Volcanoes are secondary combustions of masses that have originated through the primary combustion, and are therefore only of local occurrence. Such combustible masses are without doubt bodies belonging to the class of Inflammables, and thus carbons, sulphur, sulphuretted metals. Simply burning gases would throw up on high the masses of earth, but not heat them to the degree of fusion.
691. By the heat of these combustions the masses of earth have been fused, forming lavas. The silicious lavas are obsidian, pitch-stone. The argillaceous lavas are the kinds usually met with. Next come the talcose lavas. The calcareous lavas are probably dolomite.
B.—METALLIC ORES AND INFLAMMABLES.
692. Metallic-ores and Inflammables are products of the planet, when completed, and have not originated along with the origin of the latter, like the earths. The question accordingly arises, what have been the forces by which the metals and Inflammables were produced.
a. METALLIC VEINS.
693. Fissures in rocks, so narrow that they cannot be illuminated by the sun, are called passages or veins. They are rarely found in granite, appear generally for the first time in gneiss, more rarely in the later kinds of rocks, and almost cease to be met with in the stratified chain of mountains. They are found principally in mountains, and thus in masses of earth which project above the level land. We must thus arrive at the conclusion that they have there originated by actual fissure, and that indeed for this reason, that masses which project or stand freely out would admit of yielding asunder more easily than the masses of the plains. This fissure may take place by mechanical disruption, by land-slips, or even also by desiccation.
694. The veins are not prolonged into the kind of rock that underlies them, as e. g. gneiss veins into granite, and so on; they have hence originated from above.
695. They are open and wider above and strike out below; they have not therefore originated by a force acting from beneath.
696. In the schistose rock they form generally transverse fissures.
697. There was a time in which the veins stood empty, as well as a time in which the primary valleys were empty, namely unreplenished with gneiss, mica-schist, and such like minerals.
b. PRODUCTION OF ORE.
698. Geogeny takes two directions; the one passes upon the periphery into the splitting action of light, the other into the abyss, where darkness reigns.
699. The valleys were the condition that conduced to the differentialization of the earths, because in them light had power to produce the highest polarity. By the valleys the Earthy has been separated into its principles; silex has separated into clay and talc, to which finally carbonate calcareous earths and salts succeeded.
700. The Earthy cannot subsist in its identity in the broad valleys; the earth cannot be represented as the pure symbol of gravity. All bodies that have originated upon the surface of the planet are oxydes or salts.
701. If the earth-difference be generated in the illumined valleys, so must the earth-identity be produced in the dark valleys; for it is the absence of light alone that allows the purely Basic to subsist. This earth generated out of gravity is the ore.
702. The ore is a child and a treasure of darkness; where light is, it must vanish; it cannot endure its gaze. Metal when exposed to day is given up to annihilation, to oxydation.
703. Darkness is, however, no power, and can consequently be only the opportunity, not the cause of anything's happening. Other forces, instead of that of light, must have therefore operated in the production of ores. In order to discover these forces the relations of the ores must be carefully weighed or considered.
704. The ore is in a philosophic sense a reduced earth, and so reduced indeed that the basic principle has obtained the preponderance over the oxygenic or supporter of combustion, and attained unto substantiality.
705. In light, in the water forsooth when illuminated, the two earth-principles were already divided internally, but not completely separated; salt only originated, namely an acid and alkali.
706. The ore is, however, a salt wholly reduced, and indeed the reduced alkali has become metal, the reduced acid with the basis of hydrogen, Inflammable, namely, coal or sulphur.
707. Now as light was not able to produce such a separation in the free or full sense of the term, forces must thus have been present in the dark passages, which completed this separation.
708. Ore and Inflammable are the total salt dissevered, and this is the dissolution of the two; the former are blue and yellow, the latter is the compound green.
709. The processes of the formation of salt and of ore are both indeed processes of separation, but yet they stand opposite to, or rather transcend each other. Both mutually conditionate each other.
710. While the earths submitted to the action of light upon the surface of the planet are converted into salt, the process of the formation of ore takes place in the dark or under the earth; or while above the oxygen is predominant, the basic body is that below. The ore imparts upon a large scale its oxygen to the salt, and the salt bestows its basic body on the ores.