86 ONTOLOGY. 



nothing foreign is posited in the air, any more than by 

 friction, and by both the electricity is attained in a simi- 

 lar dynamical manner. 



423. The elements of the air, polarized to the highest 

 degree by electricity, must combine, and this combination 

 is the process of combustion. The final result of elec- 

 trical tension is combustion of air. It is only, however, 

 the two primary bodies that undergo combustion ; the 

 two constituent parts of the air must, therefore, be driven 

 by electricity to their last extreme, even to the most per- 

 fect element of fire and the basic or terrestrial substance. 

 The internal combination of both these primary or ele- 

 mental bodies, or the product of this aerial combustion is 

 next of all ^oater. The termination of electrical tension 

 in the air is rain. All rain is the extinguished function, 

 the dying spirit of air. The two hostile principles are 

 reconciled in water. Water accompanies every process 

 of combustion. 



424. By electricity the air was separated into the two 

 inferior elements, into water and earth. At present, 

 where the whole water and the whole earth has been pre- 

 cipitated from air, rain is certainly as a rule only water 

 condensed and held in solution in the air. 



425. The nitrogen gas is the residue of the primary 

 rain. After the air has become sea by the combination 

 of oxygen and hydrogen, it no longer creates water out 

 of its own bulk, but now rederives it from the sea, and 

 still but imitates its primary process in rain. 



426. Were there merely solid land upon the planet, 

 the oxygen pole would be evoked in the air, and the 

 latter would be precipitated wholly as water. Were 

 there merely water or sea upon the planet, the nitrogen 

 pole would be evoked, and the air be wholly precipi- 

 tated as earth. But since the two elements are con- 

 stantly and alternately operating upon the air, so must 

 at one time water, at another earth, be generated and 

 precipitated from it. The earths in the act of falling 

 down, or in precipitation, are the meteoric stones. They 

 are only the after-births of the primary decomposition of air. 



