56 Vital Physics. 



degree of plus and minus in the atoms of the several distinct 

 elements is dissimilar and special. 



9. That the two imponderables diffused throughout all 

 space are at perfect rest with each other, but being dis- 

 similarly and unequally conditioned in the entity matter, 

 there is ever a tendency to change and motion in matter, 

 from the two imponderables ever tending towards equi- 

 librium or rest. Hence, perpetual motion in the heavenly 

 bodies, and constant change in matter, but especially mani- 

 fested in animated nature. 



What is here meant as inequality of permeation in 

 degree or amount may be illustrated in the following 

 j^p-nner. Take iron or steel, gold, strychnine, and hydrogen 

 as so many distinct samples. 



Iron is an element of remarkable tenacity and of sin- 

 gular variation in this respect, when subjected to different 

 degrees of heat, but it is still more marked in the compound 

 steel. 



Let it be granted that iron possesses the attractive fluid 

 largely, that it possesses it largely by central permeation 

 of its atoms, and conversely, that the repellent fluid or 

 entity is superficially applied, and in a small degree, the 

 result will be two-fold. First, that heat will be slowly 

 appropriated by each atom, whilst it is immersed in that 

 entity or fluid in a very concentrated form, as in a very hot 

 furnace, and therefore the approximation of each particle or 

 atom will be slowly changed or it will be melted. 



Carbon being an element in which the repellent and 

 attractive fluids are about equally divided, and in which 

 probably the repellent is the central fluid, different degrees 

 of diffusion of this element in the iron gives to steel the 



