AND THE ATMOSPHERE. 205 



the individuals, to have the ane superseded and 

 obliterated, by external coloring, or the other 

 mutilated and defaced. 



2. It is natural for air to exist in spaces free, 

 and unconfined it is unnatural for it to be 

 confined in close vessels, and thereby prevented 

 from exerting the essential and natural power 

 it contains, of expanding, equally, in every di- 

 rection. 



3. It is natural for water to subsist, in a li- 

 quid state ; it is unnatural for it to be changed 

 by the operation of an external cause, either 

 into a gaseous, or into a solid one ; and more 

 especially it may be considered to subsist in an 

 unnatural state, when it has been acted upon, 

 by the living principle of animals and vegeta- , 

 bles, and incorporated w r ith them. Under cir- 

 cumstances such as these, w r ater must be consi- 

 dered as having lost its original properties, in- 

 somuch that the definitions by which it was 

 characterised are altogether lost ; and, conse- 

 quently, that it then subsists in an unnatural 

 State. Whatever may be the natural and pri- 

 mitive condition of water, whether it be of a 

 solid kind, as some individuals suppose or 

 that of a liquid, as is most probable -is of no 

 consequence with respect to the matter at issue. 

 Whatever change it suffers from its original 

 state, whether it be from a fluid into a solid, or 

 from a solid to a fluid one, must ever be consi- 



