GEOLOGY. 175 



combined with each other like the two primary bodies. 

 The water has no longer become an element or Equi- 

 ponderant, but an Oxygenous, a true light-body; the earth 

 has no longer continued a total earth of equal specific 

 gravity, but by relative peroxydation has become an 

 Aqueous, a Soluble. The salt has thus from the union 

 of the two lower elements, seeing that each was of no 

 more value than one primary body, become a new ele- 

 ment. 



851. This process converts the elements again into 

 their primary condition, creates new elements and thus 

 actually new matters. It is therefore a struggle of the 

 elements with their primary bodies, a separation and in- 

 terchange of the same. Such a process is called Chemism. 

 This is the essence or interpretation of chemism, viz. the 

 creation of new elements out of the old, by the reduction 

 of these to the nature of the primary bodies. 



852. Chemism, which separates or combines, ranks a 

 step higher than the process of solution, which has the 

 power only of heterogynizing, but not of separating. 

 Thus the electrical spark separates and combines in com- 

 bustion, while the tension of air enforces only evapora- 

 tion. Chemistry drives the elements to their utmost. 

 In water the oxygen is the predominating ; it becomes, 

 however, perfect first in the acid of salt. In the earth 

 the body of gravity prevails ; but it becomes first of ah 1 

 predominant in soda. 



853. The opposition of the two primary bodies has 

 been represented in the two inferior elements as chemi- 

 cal tension, and the combination of these primary ele- 

 ments is a chemical product. 



854. Chemism is moreover a process of combustion, 

 in which, however, a whole element supplies the place of 

 oxygen, and a whole element the place of the base. It is 

 an elementary process of combustion. 



855. Chemism is the metatype of primary creation, 

 both from its being a material process of combustion, as 

 from its creating new elements. It is the union of the 

 antagonism between aether and terrestrial matter occur- 



