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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
Mr . Parties , on the Indestructibility of Matter , 23
Untitled Article
< It was said of old , that the Creator weighed the dust , and measured the water , when he made the world . The first quari-• tity is here still ; and though man can gather and scatter , move , mix and unmix , yet he can def stroy nothing : the putrefaction of one thing is a preparation for the being , and the bloom ,, and the ' beauty of another . Something ? gathers up all fragments ^ and no-• thing is lost /" * Link after link the vital chain extends , And the long line of being never ends . " Darwin .
Even the very taper by which I write was once water , or in part so , long before the industrious bee collected , it from the flower , and while it is now burning to minister to my convenience , the whole becomes in strict conformity to the general economy of the universe , rc-converted to water and carbonic acid gas , fit for . the nourishment of other plants and the production of other
flowers , which in their turn will produce wax also , to be collected and applied as before . c < What hand Almighty Aixhitect but thine , Could give the model of this vast design ? What hand but thine adjust the amazing whble ? And bid consenting systems beauteous
roll ? " Boyse . I will adduce one more instance as a proof of the indestructible nature of the elements of matter , and of the economy of nature , and that shall suffice . What I
* Those who are unaccustomed to chemical experiments , may satisfy themselves of the truth of this , by placing * a piece of limestone or marble in a glass of water * and pouring upon it any of the stronger acids ; for no sooner does the acid touch the stone , than an abundance of carbonic acid will be disengaged and rise in bubbles to che surface of the water . This carbonic acid , though it may have been imprisoned for thousands of years within the marble * will be found by correct analysis , to possess the same properties precisely , as carbonic acicj recently formed by chemical means .
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now refer to is carbon , the base of charcoal . Carbon , whether we regard it in its most simple state , the diamond , or in that of common charcoal , is not only indestructible by age , but in all the combinations that it is capable of forming , and" which are infinitely beyond our comprehension , it stjll preserves its identity . If charcoal be burnt in atmospheric air , the
charcoal combines with the oxygen of the atmosphere , and carbonic acid < ia 5 is formed . Charcoal , in the state of carbonic acid , exists in combination with earths and stones in ^ unbounded quanti - ties , and though buried for thousands of vears beneath immense rocks , or in the centre of mountains , it rs still carbonic acid , for no sooner is it disengaged frqrn
its dormitory * , then it rises with all the life and vigour of recent formation ; nor is it the least impaired by its torpid inactivity during the lapse nf ages , or the devastation of a world . This cider of things seems tr > have been designed ultimately for the accommodation and for the
use of man , who appears to be endowed with powers capable of perpetual and indefinite improvement . It is natural then to ask , is it . at all likely , that the Almighty , whose beneficence and wisdom are so conspicuous in every part of his vast creation , and who has endowed the elements of all matter with a capability of never-ending m
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1809, page 23, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1732/page/23/
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