Elements of Physiophilosophy

by Lorenz Oken

305. The heavy, rigid, carbon-element is the Earth. The earth is neither gaseous nor fluid. The earth contains a preponderance of carbon, with a tolerable quantity of oxygen, and a slight amount of hydrogen and nitrogen. The earth is an oxyd of carbon.

306. If fire is indicated by + 0-, the air then corresponds to the-, the water to +, the earth to the 0. The earth is therefore the Identical, water the Indifferent, air the Different; or the first the centre, the second the radius, the last the periphery of the general globe or of fire. The earth is naught but an accumulation of points. If radii occur in it, it happens only because all points have not place in the middle point.

307. The capacity for analysis of the elements comports with the serial order of their origin. The air is most easily analysed, the water with difficulty, the earth scarcely or not at all. The æther is occupied in eternal analysis, and therefore appears only when it is momentarily polarized unto light or heat, i. e. obtains the disposition to fixation.

308. If air represent arithmetic, so does earth the geometry or universality of forms. Water is the synthesis of both, the algebra; æther the analysis.

309. The geometrical figures of the earthy are called crystals; the geometry of the earth is Crystallography.

310. In the creation the three primary ideas attained only by degrees to reality. First of all the trias becomes real in the air, then the dyas in water, and lastly the monas in the earth. The creation of the elements is none other than a representation of the three divine ideas in a finite sphere. Creation is a process of formation of the nothing.

311. Creation ceases with the production of the fixed or stable form; for all ideas have parted from each other, and settled down into the most Individual, with which separation all further formation of new matters necessarily ceases. Creation is a constant analysis of the æther, of air, and finally, of water.

312. The element that is correspondent to gravity necessarily occupies the centre upon the planet. It is surrounded by the element corresponding to light, the water, like the centre is by the radii; both are enveloped by the heat-element or air, which forms the periphery of the globe, the integument of the planet.

313. The forms of the elements are the following; water is spherical in its greatest as well as least parts; for it is the point merging out of itself, and can therefore nowhere acquire form. The earth is everywhere nothing but point; it is therefore concrete, and every part self-subsistent or individual, while in water no part subsists for itself, but at every opportunity is confluent with the other, and therefore arrives nowhere at individuality. Finally, air is the eternal flight of the smallest parts to the periphery. In the earth the Finite or Singular is for itself; in the water it is so only through the Whole; in the air it is not indeed for itself, but is there only the Whole without individualized parts.

314. The world is twofold, an ætherial and a terrestrial; both are transcripts or copies of each other, and both ultimately of God. The terrestrial world has originated out of the æther; it is therefore further removed from God than the æther; this is the discharged, purified Terrestrial.