100 ONTOLOGY. 



generating action tends towards the centre of darkness 

 of gravity. What in the earths and salts is the duplex 

 tendency of crystallization, is in the metals the iden- 

 tifying magnetism, as an everlasting operation of attrac- 

 tion. 



765. Magnetism is still, however, not identical with 

 gravity. Gravity is the centre abstractedly from the 

 periphery ; but magnetism is the centre only in relation 

 to the periphery or light. 



766. Polarity belongs to the essence as well as the 

 genesis of magnetism ; the metal subsists only through 

 a constant resistance against the universal process of 

 oxydation, against the developmental process of the earth- 

 principles, which the metal is always striving to conceal. 

 The metal is altogether the most mysterious essence of 

 the planet. This resistance to the disclosure of the 

 Innermost of the earth is magnetism. Where magnetism 

 has wholly attained this concealment, it renders the metal 

 perfectly free and disappears, because it has become com- 

 pletely embodied. In the noble metals it has attained 

 what it is still seeking in iron. 



767. Magnetism is a linear action with two different 

 extremities, like the primary radius. By one extremity 

 magnetism runs towards the identical centre, by the 

 other towards the partite, electrical periphery, towards 

 the oxydized earths. One extremity will reduce, the 

 other oxydize ; one will become metal, the other earth. 

 This is the difference between north and south pole, the 

 former centre, the latter periphery. 



768. There is no peculiar magnetic fluid, any more 

 than there is a matter of light, heat and electricity. In 

 magnetism the spirit only of the earth appears, as in 

 light the spirit of heaven. 



769. Magnetism is a constant process of excitation. 

 This process of excitement is the process of imparting 

 and of propagation. Magnetism has not been given, 

 but excited. It breathes life into the iron bar, whereby 

 the latter awakes, and that is magnetism. 



770. Every action, which induces differences in a line 



