SUCCESSION AND CHANGE. 97 



fore, as the water boils off in vapour, the remaining 

 liquid becomes salter and salter, until at last there 

 is much more salt than the remaining water could 

 keep dissolved if it were cold. If the boiling were 

 carried on too long, the salt, together with the other 

 matters in the water, would begin to form a crust at 

 the bottom ; but the salt-makers here " observed" the 

 proper strength to which the brine should be boiled ; 

 and they stop the boiling and allow the water to 

 cool, in that state when there is not so much water 

 as is sufficient to overcome the tendency which the 

 invisible atoms of salt have to form themselves into 

 crystals, and so as the stronger power invariably 

 acts in nature, the salt crystallizes. The brine is 

 thus obtained by motion (it becomes brine by the 

 ingredients of water and salt, which are at the least 

 four in number, moving into a very intimate con- 

 nexion with each other). The brine is warmed by 

 motion ; the surplus water is carried off by motion ; 

 the water is cooled by motion (the motion of the 

 heat out of it), and the salt is crystallized by motion. 

 If we were to follow the processes through which 

 the salt, or any other substance whatever, passes 

 even in the longest series of changes or events, we 

 should invariably find each change to be a motion 

 of some kind or other; and that any particular 

 motion always arose from some power or source 

 (beyond which we could not trace the motion) 

 overcoming another power which, had it been the 

 stronger, would have produced a totally different 

 result ; and given rise to quite a different chain of 

 appearances. Take, for instance, a bushel of barley, 

 and steep it in water, and it will drink up some of 

 the water, and swell and become sugary to the taste, 

 and begin to sprout ; and it will do that whether it 

 is steeped by the maltster, or sown in the earth and 

 steeped by the moisture of that. Thus, a succession 

 of events is begun, which in each case we can trace 

 no farther than the grain of barley, unless we trace 



