90 ELEMENTS. 



ELEMENTS OF THE ANCIENTS. 



THE bodies assumed by the ancient philosophy to constitute 

 the original principles, or elements of matter, have been long 

 since demonstrated, in the most satisfactory manner, to be 

 compounds. 



The scientific of the present enlightened age have esta- 

 blished, by a general consent, an admission that the un decom- 

 pounded substances, from which all other matter is formed, are 

 now (by an increase of 14 since 1818) in number fifty-four. 



This conclusion has been supported by the difficulties these 

 bodies have presented to the several attempts at their analysis, 

 with the insufficient means we have hitherto possessed in refer- 

 ence to their decomposition. It cannot, however, be advanced 

 in favour of such a system, that it is in desirable accordance 

 with that sublime simplicity the acknowledged attribute of an 

 Omnipotent creative power. 



It is recorded in the 1st chapter of Genesis, 3rd verse, that 

 when this earth was newly formed out of nothing, the Divine 

 Author of the universe called forth light, as if by the agency 

 of its power, to modify the chaotic embryo of this terrestrial 

 globe, and bestow on it the transcendent beauties of Nature. 



Impressed with this view of the implied agency of, light, and 

 reflecting on the known combinations of oxygen, hydrogen, 

 and nitrogen, existing so generally in the animal, vegetable, 

 and mineral kingdoms ; the diversity in quality, and appear- 

 ance of substances composed of the SAME original principles, 

 from the simple variation of a diminutive proportion in even 

 but ONE of their constituents, and that many of the bodies 

 termed at that period (1818), and which are still similarly 

 considered as undecompounded give, from analogy, strong 

 traces of a compound nature, I was induced to venture on the 

 inquiry at a period so distant (1818), with the hope to effect a 

 removal of the difficulties, by enlisting in the investigation 



