chapter_11_text

c11p46

Imagine a snow-covered field glistening in the sun on a clear, quiet winter’s day. As far as we can see, there is no sign of life, no movement. Here water, which is normally fluid and, in its liquid state, serves the ever-changing life-processes, covers the earth in the form of millions of separate crystals shaped with mathematical exactitude, each of which breaks and reflects in a million rays the light from the sun (Plate V). A contrast, indeed, between this quiet emergence of forms from levity into gravity, and the form-denying volcanism surging up out of gravity into levity, as shown by the ever-restless activity of the Solfatara. As we found volcanism to be a macrotelluric manifestation of functional sulphur, we find in the process of snow-formation a corresponding manifestation of functional phosphorus.

chapter_11_text

c11p62

In Fig. 6 an attempt has been made to represent diagrammatically the function of Carbon in a way corresponding to the previous representation of the functions of Sulphur and Phosphorus.

*
chapter_11_text

c11p9

The birth of chemistry as a science, in the modern sense, is closely connected with a revolutionary change in the conception of what can be called the chemical arch-process-combustion, or, to use a more scientific term, oxidation. This change arose out of the Contra-Levitatem maxim and the new conception of heat which this maxim required. In the old doctrine of the four Elements, Heat had been conceived as a manifestation of the element of Fire, and so, together with Air, as belonging to the realm of the ‘uncreated things’. Hence the release of heat from created substance was always felt to be a sacred act, as is shown by the fire rites of old.

chapter_11_text

c11p15

As we have seen, one outcome of this one-sided view of combustion was the modern concept of the chemical element. To-day our task is to overcome this concept by taking a step corresponding to the one that led to it, that is, by a study of combustibility which does justice to both sides of the process involved.

*
chapter_11_text

c11p31

That these two respective attributes do not belong exclusively to the solid and the liquid states of matter can be seen at once by observing the different reactions of certain liquids to a solid surface which they touch. One need only recall the difference between water and quicksilver. If water runs over a surface it leaves a trail; quicksilver does not. Water clings to the side of a vessel; again, quicksilver does not. A well-known consequence of this difference is that in a narrow tube the surface of the liquid – the so-called meniscus – stands higher at the circumference than at the centre in the case of water; with quicksilver it is just the reverse. In the sense of the two qualities, dry and moist, water is a ‘moist’ liquid; quicksilver a ‘dry’ one. On the other hand, the quality of moistness in a solid substance appears in the adhesive power of glue.

chapter_11_text

c11p47

In the formation of snow, nature shows us in statu agendi a process which we otherwise meet in the earth only in its finished results, crystallization. We may, therefore, rightly look upon snow-formation as an ur-phenomenon in this sphere of nature’s activities. As such it allows us to learn something concerning the origin in general of the crystalline realm of the earth; and, vice versa, our insight into the ‘becoming’ of this realm will enable us to see more clearly the universal function of which phosphorus is the main representative among the physical substances of the earth.

chapter_11_text

c11p63

By adding carbon to our observations on the polarity of sulphur and phosphorus we have been led to a triad of functions each of which expresses a specific interplay of levity and gravity. That we encounter three such functions is not accidental or arbitrary. Rather is it based on the fact that the interaction of forces emanating from a polarity of the first order, produces a polarity of the second order, whose poles establish between them a sphere of balance.

chapter_11_text

c11p16

As objects of our observation we choose three chemical elements all of which have the property of combustibility: Sulphur, Phosphorus, and Carbon. As will become clear, our choice of these three is determined by the fact that together they represent an instance ‘worth a thousand, bearing all within itself.

chapter_11_text

c11p32

Let us now see how, in accordance with the scheme given in Fig. 5, the four qualities in their respective combinations constitute the four elements. From the description we shall give here it will be realized how little such ancient schemes were based on abstract thoughts, and how much they were read from the facts of the world. Moreover, a comparison with our description of the four stages of matter, given in the previous chapter, would show how far the conceptual content of the old doctrine covers the corresponding facts when they are read by the eye of the modern reader in nature, notwithstanding the changes nature has undergone in the meantime.

chapter_11_text

c11p48

It has puzzled many an observer that crystals occur in the earth with directions of their main axes entirely independent of the direction of the earthly pull of gravity. Plate VI shows the photograph of a cluster of Calcite crystals as an example of this phenomenon. It tells us that gravity can have no effect on the formation of the crystal itself. This riddle is solved by the phenomenon of snow-formation provided we allow it to speak to us as an ur-phenomenon. For it then tells us that matter must be in a state of transition from lightness into heaviness if it is to appear in crystalline form. The crystals in the earth, therefore, must have originated at a time when the relation between levity and gravity on the earth was different from what it is, in this sphere, to-day.