261. All the diversity of matter depends upon the fixation of poles in the substance. For there is no diversity in the universe without poles, without binary division. The substance always remains the same, it is only the poles that change. The substance is the Indestructible, the Persistent, the æther, the nothing. 262. The fixation is the perquisite, but the necessary one, of the substance. The diversity of things resides only in the perquisite. In the substance all are alike. There is only _one_ substance, only _one_ essence. ELEMENTAL BODIES. (_How many kinds of Æther-condensations may exist?_) 263. The æther has three forms, and can therefore condense itself after a ternary manner, or in other words, there can be only three kinds of fixations of poles. 264. The condensations of the several forms of æther must be simple matters or _Elemental bodies_, as they are called. 265. There can therefore be only three simple bodies, a body of gravity = 0, one of light = +, and one of heat =-. 266. If the heat of the æther becomes fixed, the rarest, most mobile and lightest body must originate. The body of heat is _Hydrogen_. 267. If the light of the æther becomes fixed, a less dense, and thus a less heavy matter, must originate, and one whose atoms are moveable against each other. The body of light must be the most active in nature; it must determine the changes of all other elemental bodies. The body of light is _Oxygen_. 268. If the gravity of the æther become fixed, the greatest condensation must originate. The densest matter is necessarily the heaviest. The dense matter must be immoveable in its atoms, i. e. endowed with form. The body of gravity is _Carbon_ (as basis of the metals). 269. Besides these 3 elemental bodies, hydrogen, oxygen and carbon, there can be no other simple bodies. All other bodies must be only different degrees of fixation of the above-mentioned bodies, or combinations of the same. Different degrees of carbon are without doubt the metals. Different degrees of oxygen are probably chlorine, iodine, bromine. Different degrees of hydrogen are probably sulphur. Nitrogen is probably peroxydised hydrogen, or an oxyd of hydrogen; this is indicated by its medium weight, and its perfectly azotic character. ELEMENTS. 270. Simple bodies cannot exist for themselves, for there can nowhere be an æther, which merely belongs to gravity, or merely to light or to heat. 271. An elemental body is never a Total, but invariably a Polar, a something not whole, properly a half or rather but a third essence, a fraction. One-sidedness is therefore the character of the elemental body.