128 APPENDIX. 



5. The health and vigour of vegetative bodies, as well as the colours 

 by which they are adorned, is principally attributable to the transition 

 of radiant matter to a fixed state. 



6. As the crystalline forms assumed by bodies are governed by the 

 number and position of the original constituents in their composition, 

 and as no homogeneous body can consistently exhibit such diversity in 

 its anatomical arrangement, the assumption of such forms by the 

 metals is one of the many presumptive evidences in support of their 

 compound nature. See fig. 2, plate 2nd. 



7. As all bodies, whether of the animal, vegetable, or mineral king- 

 dom (as here pre-sumed), are compounds, formed of nearly the same 

 constituents, their peculiar properties and qualities are not to be consi- 

 dered as innate, but are to be attributed, in addition to variation in 

 proportion, to a modification in arrangement, inducing a. polar influence, 

 by which their passage to other stages of fixity is facilitated or im- 

 peded, and they are rendered applicable to appropriate changes. See 

 figs. 3, 4, and 5, plate 2nd. 



8. Thus matter is deleterious alone from an arrangement contrary to 

 that consistent with animal organization, and not from qualities or pro- 

 perties peculiar to its constituents. 



9. The order of polarity observed in the transition of matter from a 

 fixed to a radiant state, is absolute and invariable, while that of its 

 reversion from the latter to the former, by combination with bodies of 

 fixed matter, is subject to a diversity governed by the nature of those 

 bodies, which are endowed with certain proportionate degrees of 

 fixation, or resistance to re-solution, as their poles alone appropriate to 

 connection in the radiant state, are more or less protected from the 

 influence of caloric in producing a separation of their elements. 



As the simple gases, when treated separately and isolated, are indi- 

 vidually incapable of combustion ; and the only one of them denomi- 

 nated inflammable, extinguishes ignited bodies when plunged into it, 

 and in combination with another gas termed a direct supporter of com- 

 bustion, forms water, a body the most opposite in its nature to those 

 which possess inflammability, while azote, the only substance described 

 in chemistry as a simple incombustible with a slight acquisition of 

 other matter, produces the most splendid ignition, the humble indi- 

 vidual, who with the greatest deference is about to submit the direct 

 and presumptive Evidences he has collected from experiments in 

 support of this Hypothesis, entertains the most sanguine hope to induce 



