C.—INFLAMMABLES.
Electrism.
793. Coal and sulphur may be regarded as the representatives of the Inflammables, making their appearance in the carbonic acid of lime, and the sulphuric acid of gypsum, just as the metals did among the alkalies.
794. The Inflammables are accordingly associated with the acids or the salts, the ores with the earths. It may be said that the former are reduced acids, the latter reduced earths.
795. The Inflammables are consequently those that succeed next to the salts or water-minerals. Their determining element is in this respect also the air; that of the ores is therefore the fire.
796. The Inflammable, as being the reduced acid, must have the strongest affinity for oxygen. A body, which by its own force, attracts the oxygen from the air, so that it appears luminous, is called combustible.
797. The generating spirit of the Inflammables coincides with the spirit of air, and thus with electricity. The generating spirit of metals coincides with the light; it is the radial action in the Massive, or magnetism.
798. Electricity has become embodied in the Inflammable, i. e. idioelectric; in metal, light has become embodied, i. e. idiomagnetic.
799. Now, as the Inflammable exists under two forms, with the preponderance of the earth-nature as coal, and with that of the air-nature as sulphur, so must the electricity appear fixed chiefly in the latter. This fixation is the idioelectricity.
800. As electricity is in its essence a constantly dualized agent, so can only one pole belonging to it become fixed. In sulphur this is what has been called thenegativepole.
a. SULPHUR.
801. As the air stands opposed to the earth, so mustsulphur to coal. The latter is thus endowed with positive electricity.
802. Coal is, however, the fundamental body of the metals. The metals are consequently related as positive electrics to sulphur. Sulphur is air-metal or idio-negative; metal is earth-or idiopositive sulphur. Sulphur therefore occurs almost solely with metals, as iron, pyrites, glance; yet frequently with arsenic, the metal that resembles it, e. g. in realgar.
803. Sulphur is the basis of all idioelectrism, and this property occurs only in bodies, in so far as they are positions of sulphur.
804. Magnetism and electrism are correlated, as iron and sulphur, as gravity and light, as centre and periphery. The same spirit, which when ruling in the dark, exhibits itself as magnetic, is manifested when it has attained to light in sulphur as electrical. Magnetism is only the electricity identified.
805. We may therefore speak of idiomagnetic metals as well as idioelectric bodies.
806. Magnetism therefore stands in accordance with these relations in opposition to electrism; they mutually change or annihilate each other.
807. Electrism has, in accordance with its signification, the power of manifesting itself with one pole accumulated or set free from the other, as e. g. the negative in a cake of resin; in magnetism, on the contrary, both poles are always together and inseparable. The radius is divided into two in every part of its length.
808. As the functions of metal and of sulphur are correlated, so also are their substances; they are opposed, and hence the metallization by means of sulphur with all its results. This antagonism is, however, dormant or concealed; that of the functions manifests itself much more clearly.
809. The metals, as being dense, central, and linear masses, must fall into a state of tension with electricity as with heat; this is called conduction. The metals are therefore conductors of electrism. In antagonism tothe conducting power of the metals sulphur is naturally anisolator; for what is idioactive is virtually also isolating. Iron may be likewise called an isolator of magnetism. There is onlyoneseries of bodies in nature, belonging to the peripheric and expansive functions, that conducts; the metals only are conductors. Isolation belongs to the essence of electricity.Isolating actionandElectricity are one; for electricity is the surface-function, wherein the line, which is the only conductor, disappears.
810. Electrism does not tend towards the metals, and can therefore have no definite direction in the earth; there is neither an electric meridian, nor an electric equator. There is only an electrical surface to the earth, and this is alike in all regions of the world.
811. The metals must accordingly stand opposed to sulphur as positive bodies, if not as idiopositive, yet as such when brought into collision with sulphur. The metals, when rubbed with sulphur, constantly become positive, and the sulphur remains negative.
812. The earths also become positive when rubbed with sulphur; in short, everything which, in the genesis of the earth, ranks below sulphur, is positive. Heated bodies rubbed with cold, and rough bodies with smooth, must become negative.
813. Bodies become positive with sulphur, simply because the essence of sulphur is of a negative character, or because, in other words, it is nothing else but negativity; the persistency of one pole and the counter-resistance to every other, is calledisolation. The metals are conductors, because they stand opposed to sulphur.
814. Positive isolation only is evolved opposite to sulphur, in zinc, probably because this belongs to the air-metals.
815. What sulphur is in its series, that iszincin the metallic series; the isolating electric rod, with which the other bodies are associated; the one the positive, the other the negative isolator; in so far forsooth as one can isolate bodies that have arisen through linear action.With zinc the other metals become negative, because it can be nothing else than positive, as sulphur can be none other than negative. (That this does not hold good absolutely, we need scarcely be reminded).
816. Two fixations of electricity thus exist, and from these the electric phenomena must be derived. So long as we imagine that electrical proportions run in a continuous line, so long shall we never be able to avoid contradictions. Two rods stand firmly, and from out and around these two heaps of bodies form, which in reference to their electrical relation (according to the experiments hitherto performed) are naturally exhibited as onlyoneseries.
817. Sulphur does not stand alone, but is associated with a series, especially of the higher Inflammables, bitumens or mineral-resins, ætherial oils and hydrogen gas. The higher the inflammability ascends, by so much the more energetic is the negative character, so that, finally, the sulphur itself becomes positive towards such matters.
818. If in every polar action it can be proved, that each polar line consists of infinitely numerous poles, and that each point in it can be alternately changing both polarities, in accordance with the mutation of the principal poles that exert their influence; so is it in electricity. There is scarcely a single body which cannot be positive as well as negative, if it only becomes displaced in its own series, or is transported into the other.
b. COAL.
819. During the electrical separation of the Basic of the earth, or during the communication of the aerial character to the Earthy, a body remains behind with positive character, or theCoal.
820. Coal may be regarded as volatilized metal, as a metal which can change by the action of water or acid upon it into air. Black-lead is a coal, which is directly associated with the metals.
821. Coal appears therefore less in particular places,than as expanded into entire rocky masses, as e. g. in the clay-slate and as carbonic-acid in lime.
822. The coal was, during the earth-formation, separated from the sea, yet not, or only rarely, by itself, but along with other masses of earth, while the sulphur rather accompanies the metals. Coal passes over into the earths, the sulphur into the metals.
823. The volatilized earth or coal, i. e. the earth that has ascended through water or salt unto air, is associated with a higher kingdom, and that indeed the general mass of the vegetable kingdom, as is the case in the pit-coals, which are reversions of plants.
824. As the earths and metals extend into pit-coals, so does sulphur lose itself in idioelectric, inflammable substances, which are likewise reversions of a sulphur that has escaped into a higher kingdom. Here belong the amber, mineral resins and naphthas.
825. There are thus two ways, by which the reduced earthy seeks to mount aloft; by the carbon, as belonging to the more inert earth; and the Resinous, as belonging to the more active air. The vegetable kingdom has its root in the simple earths, especially the hydroid argillaceous earths; the animal kingdom in the divided calcareous earths.
826. Sulphur is yellow, because it is the earthy that has come to light, the carbon is black, because it is sulphur volatilized, moistened in the gloom or darkness of the earth.