849. But the light always renders the water more oxygenous, and therefore the earth always more basic; finally, the one portion of the basic in the water, namely the hydrogen, separates itself, and becomes peroxydized or the hydrochloric acid. A portion of the Basic in the Earthy, namely the metallic body or carbon, separates itself also, and the remainder becomes peroxydized or soda. As the calcareous earth was at first dissolved in, and therefore one mass with, water, so at present is the alkali also combined with the acid water; while both dissolved in each other constitute salt.
850. In this process therefore _whole_ elements have been taken only as _one_ primary body, and they have combined with each other like the two primary bodies. The water has no longer become an element or Equiponderant, but an Oxygenous, a true light-body; the earth has no longer continued a total earth of equal specific gravity, but by relative peroxydation has become an Aqueous, a Soluble. The salt has thus from the union of the two lower elements, seeing that each was of no more value than one primary body, become a _new_ element.
851. This process converts the elements again into their primary condition, creates new elements and thus actually new matters. It is therefore a struggle of the elements with their primary bodies, a separation and interchange of the same. Such a process is called _Chemism_. This is the essence or interpretation of chemism, viz. the creation of new elements out of the old, by the reduction of these to the nature of the primary bodies.
852. Chemism, which separates or combines, ranks a step higher than the process of solution, which has the power only of heterogynizing, but not of separating. Thus the electrical spark separates and combines in combustion, while the tension of air enforces only evaporation. Chemistry drives the elements to their utmost. In water the oxygen is the predominating; it becomes, however, perfect first in the acid of salt. In the earth the body of gravity prevails; but it becomes first of all predominant in soda.
853. The opposition of the two primary bodies has been represented in the two inferior elements as chemical tension, and the combination of these primary elements is a chemical product.