128 ONTOLOGY. 



primary water, which was present prior to the solid 

 nucleus of the earth, is not the water, with which we are 

 at present acquainted ; it had still the earthy principles, 

 the basic in itself, which being separated by a differencing 

 act from the oxygenous of the water, was deposited as 

 carbon specially produced. No calcareous, argillaceous, 

 and silicious earth was imbedded in the primary water. 

 How then could they have been dissolved in it ? Some 

 say, by a great quantity of acids which prevailed at that 

 time ; but from whence then did these acids come ? The 

 largest quantity of them resides in lime, gypsum, and 

 common salt ; but how could this quantity, which has 

 not so much as acidified all the calcareous earth, have 

 held the rest of the earths in solution? And then again 

 are all the earths soluble by the process of acidification ? 

 We cannot reason in geogeny, as we would of a common 

 chemical precipitation, where we precipitate earths that 

 have been dissolved by elective affinities. 



576. The earths originated for the first time, when 

 they were separated from the primary water. The instant 

 of their precipitation was also the instant of their genera- 

 tion, even as rain is, or rather was, a production of the water. 

 It is easy to say that the earths had been dissolved in 

 the water, and were then precipitated by elective affinities. 

 But it is absurd to rest content with such an assertion. 

 The chief question still remains ; how ,did the earthy 

 originate, before the earth was ? Every one can say how 

 that which had already originated, and was only sus- 

 pended in water, was precipitated. But we are in the 

 habit of distinguishing the several earths, before having 

 taken a survey of matters and inquired if earths then 

 existed. 



577. It must not, however, be thought, that all had 

 happened in a gradual manner ; that air was first con- 

 verted into water, and lastly, after a lapse of some thou- 

 sand years, the latter again into earth, without with the 

 one element the principles conducting to the others being 

 already and necessarily imparted. No, everything has 

 been granted and determined at one stroke, even as with 



