497. Through the influx of fire upon the formation of the Earthy it becomes an identical, homogeneous mass, in which the possibility resides, as in the æther itself, of undergoing all changes. This developmental stage of the earth-element is represented by the metal. The homogeneous mass of the metal can become earthy by oxydation, aqueous or saline by acidification, aerial or combustible by being hydrogenized.
498. The metal is unanalysable, as is the æther, although it consists of three forms. The metal is easily restored or brought back from its combinations.
499. Besides, however, the identical, homogeneous or simple character, the metal has still also the three characters of fire or of the æther. It is therefore a triplicity in identity.
a. In so far as gravity is represented in it, it has the identical or homogeneous mass already indicated, and is heavier than all other bodies. It is central mass. It must be regarded as pure carbon. Metal and the body of gravity are one.
b. In so far as light is represented in it, it has the peculiar lustre, which stands again also in intimate connexion with the homogeneous mass. The usual colour of metals is white, the colour of unsullied light. The lustre is properly a self-illumination, and thereupon depends their repulsion of light, or opacity. Metals are therefore adiaphanous or opaque, because they are noncombustible by light. As soon as they become decomposible, namely oxydes, they become also transparent. The metals are the only opaque bodies, because they alone are non-decomposible. All matters become only opaque by admixture with metal, or in so far as the metallic body resides at the bottom of all. The visibility of the world is based upon its metallic character. Without metal we would see nothing.
c. In so far as heat is represented in metal is it extensible, fusible and fluidifiable. Metal is water that has become dense.
500. In so far as the air has acted upon the Earthy during its origin, it has imparted to it electrical and combustible properties; the metal has combined with hydrogen, has become an Inflammable, as in sulphur or pit-coal. Sulphur may be regarded as the intimate fusion of hydrogen with metal; coal as a combination of the same probably elicited by means of oxygen. Inflammables are idioelectric and combustible, because they are rigidified air. That matter belongs only to the Inflammables, which, being once kindled in exposure to the air, continues to burn of itself. The Inflammables are volatile, since they undergo combustion, i. e. they take on the condition of their antetype, the air. They have from metal the opacity and the colours, but they do not preserve the lustre or self-illumination. They become transparent simply by crystallization or oxydation.
501. With the generation of the Earthy water imparts also to a portion of the same its properties, dissolubility and transparency. To the metal and hydrogen oxygen is next added. An hydrated Earthy originates. The Aqueo-earthy is fluid in water; it is salt. Salt changes its form in the readiest manner, because it is the metatype or likeness of water; and hence its susceptibility to crystallization. It is not combustible by itself, because it is essentially an oxyde and hydroid. Salt is a metal or Inflammable that has undergone combustion, and can therefore never be simple.
502. Now that part of the earth-element, which remains after the salt, the Inflammable and the metal have been separated, is plainly the Earthy or the earth. It has therefore no aqueous properties, is not soluble; it has no aerial properties, is not electric and combustible; has no metallic properties, is not heavy, nor opaque and glittering, not fusible and malleable or extensible. The pure Earthy is always fixed or firm, and therefore figurate. The Earthy is a metal, with which the oxygen has been intimately melted down; for it is the identification of all elements.
503. The Earthy is the principal mass, because it represents the earth-element itself. Salt, Inflammable and metal are only subordinate masses, because they are only displacements of the earth-element by the other elements. Therefore a small part only of the Earthy has become salt, a yet smaller Inflammable, and the smallest, metal.