1 .58 PROPERTIES 



be the same identical substance that it was before 

 the action of heat turned it into air. 



In the actions or changes that take place in na- 

 ture (for action is but another name for change) 

 the state of air is of the utmost consequence ; and 

 it is highly probable, nay, absolutely certain, that, 

 without that state there would be no action what- 

 ever. The state of air is the end of every thing 

 old and the beginning of every thing new. The 

 matter of which any thing all things, are com- 

 pared, is altogether indestructible by any natural 

 cause; and, therefore, the only way in which 

 any thing can be destroyed, is by the destruction 

 or complete suspension of all its peculiar proper- 

 ties; by the conversion of it into air, through 

 the action of heat. While it retains all the for- 

 mer properties, it is the former substance; and 

 while it retains some of them, after others have 

 ceased to be apparent, it is the ruin of the former 

 substance; but when the whole of the former 

 properties are suspended, and the substance (still 

 identically the same substance,) is in a state of 

 air, it is literally, and in the truest sense of the 

 word, a material a material which the plastic 

 hand of nature can mould and fashion into any 

 new production for which it is adapted, with far 

 more ease and certainty than the potter can out 

 of the same clay mould " one vessel for honour, 

 and another for dishonour," or the builder can 

 apply the same bricks as part either of a palace or 

 a pig-stye. 



This, when we think seriously of it, is really 

 the most wonderful part of the whole wide field of 

 nature ; and it is the one in which the foundations 



