and the aptitude to be repelled, succeed, and reduce much of
the solid matters back to the condition of elements; which
seems to be effected by the matter of heat being again set at
liberty, which was combined with other matters by the powers
of life; and thus by its diffusion the solid bodies return
into liquid ones or into gasses, as occurs in the processes
of fermentation, putrefaction, sublimation, and calcination.
Whence solidity appears to be produced in consequence of the
diminution of heat, as the condensation of steam into water,
and the consolidation of water into ice, or by the
combination of heat with bodies, as with the materials of
gunpowder before its explosion.]

[Footnote: _Immortal matter_, l. 43. The perpetual mutability
of the forms of matter seems to have struck the philosophers
of great antiquity; the system of transmigration taught by
Pythagoras, in which the souls of men were supposed after
death to animate the bodies of a variety of animals, appears
to have arisen from this source. He had observed the
perpetual changes of organic matter from one creature to
another, and concluded, that the vivifying spirit must attend
it.]

"So, as the sages of the East record
In sacred symbol, or unletter'd word;
Emblem of Life, to change eternal doom'd,
The beauteous form of fair ADONIS bloom'd.--
On Syrian hills the graceful Hunter slain
Dyed with his gushing blood the shuddering plain; 50
And, slow-descending to the Elysian shade,
A while with PROSERPINE reluctant stray'd;
Soon from the yawning grave the bursting clay
Restor'd the Beauty to delighted day;
Array'd in youth's resuscitated charms,
And young DIONE woo'd him to her arms.--
Pleased for a while the assurgent youth above
Relights the golden lamp of life and love;
Ah, soon again to leave the cheerful light,
And sink alternate to the realms of night. 60

[Footnote: _Emblem of Life_, l. 47. The Egyptian figure of
Venus rising from the sea seems to have represented the
Beauty of organic Nature; which the philosophers of that
country, the magi, appear to have discovered to have been
elevated by earthquakes from the primeval ocean. But the