102 ONTOLOGY. 



has therefore no aqueous properties, is not soluble ; it has 

 no aerial properties, is not electric and combustible ; has 

 no metallic properties, is not heavy, nor opaque and glit- 

 tering, not fusible and malleable or extensible. The pure 

 Earthy is always fixed or firm, and therefore figurate. 

 The Earthy is a metal, with which the oxygen has been 

 intimately melted down ; for it is the identification of all 

 elements. 



503. The Earthy is the principal mass, because it 

 represents the earth-element itself. Salt, Inflammable 

 and metal are only subordinate masses, because they are 

 only displacements of the earth-element by the other 

 elements. Therefore a small part only of the Earthy has 

 become salt, a yet smaller Inflammable, and the smallest, 

 metal. 



504. Although the metal is simple, it can by no 

 means correspond, as might otherwise appear, to the 

 earth-element; for every element is a totality of ele- 

 mental bodies, and therefore those minerals, which repre- 

 sent the pure earth-element, must be compound, without, 

 however, exhibiting the characters of the other elements. 

 This is found only in the earths. 



505. There are, accordingly, in a genetic point of 

 view, four, and only four, mineral classes. They origi- 

 nate in an ascending direction, from the earth-element by 

 water and air up to fire. The Classes are 



I. Earth-minerals Earths. 



II. Water- Salts. 



III. Air- Inflammables. 



IV. Eire- Ores. 



a. Earths are those minerals, which admit of being 

 changed neither by water, nor air, nor by fire ; i. e. which 

 are neither soluble, combustible, fusible, neither yield co- 

 lour, nor are particularly heavy. Such minerals have been 

 properly called earths, as silicious, argillaceous earth, &c. 



b. Salts are those which have aqueous properties, i. e. 

 are soluble. 



c. Inflammables are those which have aerial properties, 

 i. e. are inflammable and volatile. 



