176 ONTOLOGY. 



ring within the circle of the terrestrial elements. Che- 

 mism is a true conversion of substances according to 

 their fixation. 



856. All chemism takes place only in water; not 

 only because the particles can move therein, but because 

 chemism is a process of combustion of the elements 

 themselves. The inferior elements, however, such as water 

 and earth, can only undergo combustion with each other, 

 because the two are moreover related to each other as 

 aether and mass ; or as oxygen and base, for the two, so 

 to speak, have become unipolar. Without Fluid and 

 Solid we cannot think of chemism. 



857. The chemism of air is in the beginning electri- 

 city and then the true process of combustion ; both are 

 similar, but different in position. In the process of com- 

 bustion both elements are unipolar in the air, thus moie- 

 ties ; but in chemism two elements unite so as to con- 

 stitute a Whole. The product of air-chemism is water, 

 as the product of earth-chemism is salt. Water and salt 

 fall into one position, but transcend each other, even as 

 the process of combustion invades the province of chemism. 

 The relation of electrism to chemism has now been ex- 

 pressed in the clearest manner. The one is chemical 

 tension of air, but chemism is the electrical tension of 

 earth and water. 



858. Chemism is related to magnetism, as salt is to 

 metal, as the sedimentary to the primary periods. The 



| whole sedimentary period is a product of chemism, 

 as the whole primary period is a product of magnetism ; 



"salt and metal are only the last evolution of these 

 periods, and the products for whose sake all the pre- 

 ceding actions and formations have taken place ; granite 

 and lime with their ramifications, are but the stems, 

 upon which metal and salt are borne as blossoms. 

 JS5J^ Magnetism and._cheipism nm thus the creating 

 agentslbr the solid nucleus of the earth, and through 

 both is it completed. The process of earth-formation is 

 a magneto-chemisin. 



860. Regarding the earth as an entire crystal, mag- 



