EARTH. 65 



the globe, namely, to form drops. It possesses there- 

 fore the effort unto form, while it is always relapsing 

 into formlessness. This oscillation between form and 

 formlessness is the conception of fluidity, which is there- 

 fore essentially different from that of gasidity ; it might 

 be said that the latter were the arithmetic or constant 

 change of numbers ; but that fluidity were the combi- 

 nation of arithmetic with geometry. 



298. If the essence of water consists in the contest 

 between form and formlessness, it must thus seek to pro- 

 duce fluidity everywhere. Liquefaction is, however, 

 called solution, namely, globules are formed, Iboth on a 

 large and small scale. The function of water is there- 

 fore solution. It dissolves the air, (imbibes it) like the 

 earth. 



299. Water is more difficult to analyze than air, be- 

 cause its poles are more fixed. 



300. In the analysis of water, the body of heat 

 emerges in a pure state as hydrogen, because the an- 

 tagonism here subsists in an abrupt manner; in the 

 air it is constantly changing. Hydrogen is therefore 

 nitrogen wholly deoxydised. 



301. If water is the oxygen-element, so is it the light- 

 element or condensed light-aether; thus it is as little 

 something absolutely new as the air. 



302. Terrestrial life originates out of water, as does 

 the cosmic life out of light. All form originates from 

 water ; for it is the general fluid, or that which strives 

 towards form. Without water, there would be no life, no 

 Solid and no Organic. 



EARTH. 



303. If the gravity of aether condenses itself, or the 

 action of gravity be fixed in a quantity of aether, there 

 originates immobility of the atoms, i. e. an effort upon 

 their part towards a single direction, namely, simply 

 towards the centre. The effort towards a single direc- 

 tion or towards the centre, is cohesion or rigidity. 



304. The mass with fixed gravity is carbon. If there- 



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