285. The air is the first terrestrial element, the first degree of ætherial condensation associated with the feeblest fixation of poles, the constant change of which is manifested in its electric relations. It corresponds in every respect, in mobility, extension, general penetration, &c., to heat. The air consists of a preponderance of the body of heat or hydrogen (oxydulated as nitrogen in the proportion of 79 by volume), and of a fair quantity of the body of light or oxygen (21); also of a very small amount of the body of gravity or carbon, as evidenced in the carbonic acid. 286. The air is a maximum of air, a medium of water, and a minimum of earth. 287. As heat is not merely indifferent æther, nor merely its motion or extension, but is the æther moved by the polarity of light, so is the hydrogen gas in the air not in a pure state, but converted by oxygen into nitrogen. The air is in every respect therefore an element that has undergone combustion, an oxyd of hydrogen and carbon. 288. The oxygen is that which is everywhere active, exciting, moving, and vivifying everything; it is the light in the Terrestrial. The nitrogen is inert, as it were mortified, and therefore mortifying or causing death; the former the +, the latter the-. The greatest activity among all terrestrial elements resides in the air, since all polarizations issue from it. 289. The changes in the air are accompanied by constant changes of temperature, for they are verily in themselves nothing else than changes of caloric-æther. 290. All subsequent elements must originate from or be condensations of air, even as this has arisen out of, and been a condensation of, the æther. 291. Condensations, however, are fixations of poles; the other elements differ therefore only from air by having other poles fixed in them. 292. Since the poles are at the same time fixed more internally on these elements, they can no longer have the gaseous form. 293. They must on this account contain more bulk and be therefore heavier. WATER. 294. If the polarity of light becomes fixed in a certain quantity of the mass of æther, or the oxygen of the air obtains the preponderance, a less changing element originates possessing a more definite character, and the atoms of which adhere more strongly to each other than those of air. 295. This element has, in addition to the gaseous effort towards a general globe or periphery, the effort at the same time also to a centre, or to an individual globe. It is therefore neither elastic or gaseous. The effort of a mass to a _special_ and _general_ globe is a conflict betwixt form and want of form. This effort is called _fluidity_. 296. The fluid element must contain a preponderance of oxygen (85), and less hydrogen (15). There is also some carbon present in it. The carbon of water is to be sought in the slime of the sea, for the sea, and not fresh water, is the primary water.