66 ONTOLOGY. 



fore the carbonic acid of air, or the carbon of water, 

 obtain the preponderance over the other elemental bodies, 

 there thus originates the rigid centripetal element. 



305. The heavy, rigid, carbon-element is the Earth. 

 The earth is neither gaseous nor fluid. The earth con- 

 tains a preponderance of carbon, with a tolerable quan- 

 tity of oxygen, and a slight amount of hydrogen and 

 nitrogen. The earth is an oxyd of carbon. 



306. If fire is indicated by + , the air then cor- 

 responds to the , the water to +, the earth to the 0. 

 The earth is therefore the Identical, water the Indif- 

 ferent, air the Different ; or the first the centre, the se- 

 cond the radius, the last the periphery of the general 

 globe or of fire. The earth is naught but an accumu- 

 lation of points. If radii occur in it, it happens only because 

 all points have not place in the middle point. 



307. The capacity for analysis of the elements com- 

 ports with the serial order of their origin. The air 

 is most easily analysed, the water with difficulty, the 

 earth scarcely or not at all. The aether is occupied in 

 eternal analysis, and therefore appears only when it is 

 momentarily polarized unto light or heat, i. e. obtains 

 the disposition to fixation. 



308. If air represent arithmetic, so does earth the 

 geometry or universality of forms. Water is the syn- 

 thesis of both, the algebra ; aether the analysis. 



309. The geometrical figures of the earthy are called 

 crystals ; the geometry of the earth is Crystallography. 



310. In the creation the three primary ideas attained 

 only by degrees to reality. First of all the trias becomes 

 real in the air, then the dyas in water, and lastly the 

 monas in the earth. The creation of the elements is 

 none other than a representation of the three divine 

 ideas in a finite sphere. Creation is a process of forma- 

 tion of the nothing. 



311. Creation ceases with the production of the fixed 

 or stable form ; for all ideas have parted from each other, 

 and settled down into the most Individual, with which 

 separation all further formation of new matters necessarily 



