[FIRST KINGDOM.]
MINERAL OR EARTH KINGDOM.
473. Uni-or bin-elementary terrestrial bodies are minerals or earths; their development is Mineralogy in the general sense of that term. The earths regarded individually gives us the science of Mineralogy proper; combined to form a whole, that of Geology.
I.—MINERALOGY.
474. Mineralogy teaches us the development of the earth-element.
475. The earth-element does not exist universally, but only in particular bodies or individuals. There is no general earth, but it is either silicious earth or common salt, sulphur or iron, and so on.
476. The earth-element or the earth can only sustain changes, which are permanent or abiding; for in it alone fixation has become formation, in which the atoms do not move, or whereby at least a constant individual character of body, or one that is chemical, becomes apparent. The changes undergone by the other three elements are not constant, because of the atoms ceaselessly moving and balancing themselves. They do not exist individually, but only universally. There is only one water, one air, and only one fire; there are therefore no igneous, aerial, and aqueous individuals.
477. The changes of the earth-element can only take place upon its fundamental or characteristic body, thus on carbon.
478. Nothing can, however, change of itself. All change must proceed from external influence. All things can be changed therefore by such influences only as are already antecedent to or before them. The two other bodies, however, are prior to carbon; before the earth-element only the three other elements.
479. The earth can therefore be changed in only two ways; either the carbon by the other elemental bodies, or the total earth-element by the other elements.