102 From Matter to Man. 



The chief facts of chemical decomposition, as com- 

 monly understood, involve principally the reduction 

 of substances in solutions, such as sugar, salt, and 

 alum ; but the reduction of all substances to more 

 elementary conditions practically involves the opera- 

 tion of the same law or laws. Thus the reduction of 

 substances by fire and by decay are virtually effected 

 by similar laws, more or less changed owing to the 

 difference of conditions effecting the reduction. For 

 example, substances of weak cohesion, easily dissolved 

 in hot water, become atomically separated merely by 

 the increased molecular motion of the water. Denser 

 substances, dissolving in acids or by fire, involve 

 (besides intense molecular motion) the operation of 

 chemical attraction — that is, like-material-attraction 

 and sexual-material-selection. Lastly, organic sub- 

 stances decomposing by decay effect their action 

 through the withdrawal of their aggregated cohesive 

 force, or a reversal of their living magnetic current. 



Chemical decomposition is thus the essential ob- 

 verse principle of cyclic evolution, through which the 

 universe becomes an endless re-creation. It is the 

 autumn principle of universal energy which manures 

 the fields with falling leaves for the new birth of the 

 spring : the law which reduces the world to ashes, so 

 that from the embers of its own decay it may arise 

 phcenix-like, with renewed life, energy, and hope, into 

 an ever beautiful and everlasting reality ; for the 

 living must die in order that the living may live. 



