168 ONTOLOGY. 



the conducting power of the metals sulphur is naturally 

 an isolator ; for what is idioactive is virtually also iso- 

 lating. Iron may be likewise called an isolator of mag- 

 netism. There is only one series of bodies in nature, 

 belonging to the peripheric and expansive functions, that 

 conducts ; the metals only are conductors. Isolation 

 belongs to the essence of electricity. Isolating action 

 and Electricity are one ; for electricity is the surface- 

 function, wherein the line, which is the only conductor, 

 disappears. 



810. Electrism does not tend towards the metals, and 

 can therefore have no definite direction in the earth; 

 there is neither an electric meridian, nor an electric equa- 

 tor. There is only an electrical surface to the earth, and 

 this is alike in all regions of the world. 



811. The metals must accordingly stand opposed to 

 sulphur as positive bodies, if not as idiopositive, yet as 

 such when brought into collision with sulphur. The 

 metals, when rubbed with sulphur, constantly become 

 positive, and the sulphur remains negative. 



812. The earths also become positive when rubbed with 

 sulphur; in short, everything which, in the genesis of 

 the earth, ranks below sulphur, is positive. Heated 

 bodies rubbed with cold, and rough bodies with smooth, 

 must become negative. 



813. Bodies become positive with sulphur, simply 

 because the essence of sulphur is of a negative character, 

 or because, in other words, it is nothing else but nega- 

 tivity; the persistency of one pole and the counter- 

 resistance to every other, is called isolation. The metals 

 are conductors, because they stand opposed to sulphur. 



814. Positive isolation only is evolved opposite to sul- 

 phur, in zinc, probably because this belongs to the air- 

 metals. 



815. What sulphur is in its series, that is zinc in the 

 metallic series ; the isolating electric rod, with which the 

 other bodies are associated; the one the positive, the 

 other the negative isolator ; in so far forsooth as one can 

 isolate bodies that have arisen through linear action. 



