Elements of Physiophilosophy

by Lorenz Oken

849. But the light always renders the water more oxygenous, and therefore the earth always more basic; finally, the one portion of the basic in the water, namely the hydrogen, separates itself, and becomes peroxydized or the hydrochloric acid. A portion of the Basic in the Earthy, namely the metallic body or carbon, separates itself also, and the remainder becomes peroxydized or soda. As the calcareous earth was at first dissolved in, and therefore one mass with, water, so at present is the alkali also combined with the acid water; while both dissolved in each other constitute salt.

850. In this process therefore whole elements have been taken only as one primary body, and they have combined with each other like the two primary bodies. The water has no longer become an element or Equiponderant, but an Oxygenous, a true light-body; the earth has no longer continued a total earth of equal specific gravity, but by relative peroxydation has become an Aqueous, a Soluble. The salt has thus from the union of the two lower elements, seeing that each was of no more value than one primary body, become a new element.

851. This process converts the elements again into their primary condition, creates new elements and thus actually new matters. It is therefore a struggle of the elements with their primary bodies, a separation and interchange of the same. Such a process is called Chemism. This is the essence or interpretation of chemism, viz. the creation of new elements out of the old, by the reduction of these to the nature of the primary bodies.

852. Chemism, which separates or combines, ranks a step higher than the process of solution, which has the power only of heterogynizing, but not of separating. Thus the electrical spark separates and combines in combustion, while the tension of air enforces only evaporation. Chemistry drives the elements to their utmost. In water the oxygen is the predominating; it becomes, however, perfect first in the acid of salt. In the earth the body of gravity prevails; but it becomes first of all predominant in soda.

853. The opposition of the two primary bodies has been represented in the two inferior elements as chemical tension, and the combination of these primary elements is a chemical product.

854. Chemism is moreover a process of combustion, in which, however, a whole element supplies the place of oxygen, and a whole element the place of the base. It is an elementary process of combustion.

855. Chemism is the metatype of primary creation, both from its being a material process of combustion, as from its creating new elements. It is the union of the antagonism between æther and terrestrial matter occurring within the circle of the terrestrial elements. Chemism 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 æther 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 electricity and then the true process of combustion; both are similar, but different in position. In the process of combustion both elements are unipolar in the air, thus moieties; but in chemism two elements unite so as to constitute 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 expressed 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 preceding 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.