ORGANOGENY. 179 



progressively advance, and by it only does it divide into 

 lesser planetary masses or bodies, called individuals. 

 This is the ascending creation. 



869. To the earth-element, in which the active_mag- 

 netism is isolated, comes the element- water ; and by the 

 identification of both into one body, a new process is 

 evolved, which we have recognized by the term chemism 

 salt. Then the earth-element combines with air and 

 becomes an Inflammable, in which the process is like- 

 wise extinguished and only a dead product is left the 



. Then it combines with fire and is con- 

 verted into ore. There never originates therefore from 

 the twofold combination of the earth-element with any 

 other element, but one product, that namely in which 

 the Earthy obtains the preponderance, or a mineral. 



870. Two elements only belong to the essence of 

 chemism, and they indeed are the two lowest, the ele- 

 ments carbon and oxygen, both being reduced to their 

 primary condition, i. e. to that of an alkali in natron, 

 and an acid in the hydrochloric or that of common 

 salt. 



871. As the principle or rationale of chemical action 

 consists only in the potentiality of two elements to re- 

 vert to their polar, or the qxy_genous, condition, this 

 action must thus become extinct, so soon as the creation 

 of the new or secondary element has resulted. For if 

 the tension equalizes itself in the two, and the two only be 

 coexistent, so in accordance with the compensation no new 

 tension can originate, and yet such is the groundwork 

 of all chemical action. The result of the chemical pro- 

 cess is consequently death ; and furthermore, because it 

 is also a simple bin-elementary process, it cannot be the 

 ultimate goal or limit attained by the development of the 

 planet. 



872. The next stage to which the genesis of the planet 

 ascends consists in the bin-elementary processes being as- 

 sociated with the third terrestrial element. In this . 

 manner a process originates in which the powers of 

 earth and of water marry or conjoin with the power of 



