CHAPTER II. 



_A1I0RGANIC SUBSTANCES AND ORGANIC SUBSTANCES. 



If, as results from the preceding exposition, the universe is a 

 whole eternally unstable in form, eternally immutable in sub- 

 stance, it follows as a matter of course that living or organised 

 bodies cannot be constituted of aught essentially special. An 

 integrant part of the medium which environs them, they come 

 forth from it only to return to it, and there is not an atom of 

 their substance which does not participate of the eternity of 

 universal matter, the basis of everything which exists. There 

 is not one of these atoms which has not played an infinite 

 number of parts in an infinity of organic and anorganic com- 

 binations, and which is not destined to play an infinite number 

 more. Also, in analysing elementarily the most complex of 

 animaJs, man, we, in normal conditions, find in him only four- 

 teen simple bodies of mineral chemistry, the list of which is 

 herewith given : — 



Moreover it must be stated that the mass of the human body 

 is especially constituted of four of these simple bodies, namely, 

 azote, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen. 



