TIIEin LIFE AND AFFINITY. 229 



sentially connected with those of gravitation, as the chemical laws in- 

 clude the compositions and decompositions, the attractions and repul- 

 sions of ponderable bodies,) while electricity and galvanism, on the con- 

 trary, being more connected with light and heat, are found less inherent 

 in terrestrial substances. A body which is an electric or galvanic con- 

 ductor can be conceived to exist without electric or galvanic power ; 

 whereas no earthly substance can be imagined without the chemical 

 effects proper to its composition, and the mechanical operations proper 

 to its form. It is moreover worthy of remark how all this series of 

 powei-s, which constitute in their totality the life of the planet, is found 

 also in its single parts constantly and in the most various forms ; for we 

 find in every object a proportionate gravitation of the mass towaid its 

 centre. This fact explains the mutual attraction of two bodies floating 

 in a fluid, the formation of a drop of water, and the nature of the glo- 

 bular form in general as one in which all the radii, or the relations of 

 the periphery to its centre, are equal. It explains also the mutual illu- 

 mination of single terrestrial bodies ; the production of heat as the re- 

 sult of the collision of different bodies ; the manifestation of electricity, 

 not only in the stormy atmosphere, but also in resin and glass ; and 

 the manifestation of terrestrial magnetism in the smallest bar of iron. 

 These objects, for the complete examination of their endless variety and 

 eternal regularity, require a full development of the laws of chemistry 

 and natural philosophy, — a development which would exceed the limits 

 of this treatise as much as it does the powers of the author, and which, 

 in its full and scientific comprehensiveness, is still a desideratum. 



But our purpose demands a particular examination of the relation of 

 water to the other atmospherical and terrestrial substances, more parti- 

 cularly because it forms, as we shall show, the most essential link 

 between organized and unorganized bodies, or rather the constant 

 source from which the former arise. Water considered in its threefold 

 form, as solid, fluid, and gaseous, presents a true middle and connect- 

 ing member between the planet and its atmosphere. It may be consi- 

 dered as the indifference of both, — on which fact depends its decom- 

 position into a combustible element (hydrogen), and an element 

 promoting combustion (oxygen), nay, it is in its purity really indif- 

 ferent in respect to the other terrestrial as well as to atmospherical 

 substances. But the manifold in nature, however far back in point of 

 time we trace its origin, will be found constantly issuing out of the 

 simple and indifferent ; and on this very account water, as far as it 

 appears an indifference, becomes the germ and source of an infinity of 

 other forms ; indeed it is a question whether we are not already justified 

 in supposing, and whether further inquiries will not establish the fact, 

 that both the planet and its atmosphere are but different develop- 

 ments of one and the same original fluid. Several, of the older chemists 

 (Leidenfrost, Wallerius, Markgraff) have attempted to show, that even 



Vol. I. — Part II. b 



