Cosmos, Vol. 4

The explosion of nitrogen trichloride original: "Chlor-Stickstoff"; a highly sensitive and volatile chemical compound, accompanied by fire, contrasts with the detonating combination of chlorine gas and hydrogen gas upon the impact of a direct (particularly violet) sunbeam. Metabolism original: "Stoffwechsel", the binding and the unbinding, characterize the eternal cycle of the elements, in inorganic nature as well as in the living cells of plants and animals. "The quantity of existing matter, however, remains the same; the elements only change their relative positions to one another."

Accordingly, the ancient saying of Anaxagoras A Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher (c. 500–428 BC) who argued that nothing is born or dies, but is rather compounded or dissolved proves true: that "being" original: "das Seiende" neither increases nor decreases in the universe; that what the Greeks call the passing away of things is a mere separation original: "Entmischen". To be sure, the earthly sphere—as the seat of the organic world of bodies accessible to our observation—is apparently a workshop of death and decay; but the great natural process of slow combustion, which we call decay, brings about no destruction. The unbound substances unite into other forms; and through the driving forces inherent within them, new life germinates from the womb of the earth.