PHYSIOLOGY OF LIFE. 57 



modifications of which, the innumerable offspring of all- 

 bearing Nature consist. Wisely docile to the suggestions 

 of Nature herself, the ancients significantly expressed these 

 forces under the names of earth, water, air, and fire ; not 

 meaning any tangible or visible substance so generalized, 

 but the powers predominant, and, as it were, the living 

 basis of each, which no chemical decomposition can ever 

 present to the senses, were it only that their interpene- 

 tration and co-inherence first constitutes them sensible, 

 and is the condition and meaning of a thing. Already 

 our more truly philosophical naturalists (Ritter, for 

 instance) have begun to generalize the four great elements 

 of chemical nomenclature, carbon, azote, oxygen, and 

 hydrogen : the two former as the positive and negative 

 pole of the magnetic axis, or as the power of fixity and 

 mobility ; and the two latter as the opposite poles, or plus 

 and minus states of cosmical electricity, as the powers of 

 contraction and dilatation, or of comburence and combusti- 

 bility. These powers are to each other as longitude to 

 latitude, and the poles of each relatively as north to south, 

 and as east to west. For surely the readerwill find no distrust 

 in a system only because Nature, ever consistent with her- 

 self, presents us everywhere with harmonious and accordant 

 symbols of her consistent doctrines. Nothing would be 

 more easy than, by the ordinary principles of sound logic 

 and common sense, to demonstrate the impossibility and 

 expose the absurdity of the corpuscularian or mechanic 

 system, or than to prove the intenable nature of any inter- 

 mediate system. But we cannot force any man into an 

 insight or intuitive possession of the true philosophy, 

 because we cannot give him abstraction, intellectual 



