There is not the slightest parity between the passive and active
powers of the water and those of the oxygen and hydrogen which
have given rise to it. At 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and far below that
temperature, oxygen and hydrogen are elastic gaseous bodies, whose
particles tend to rush away from one another with great force. Water, at
the same temperature, is a strong though brittle solid whose particles
tend to cohere into definite geometrical shapes, and sometimes build up
frosty imitations of the most complex forms of vegetable foliage.
Nevertheless we call these, and many other strange phaenomena, the
properties of the water, and we do not hesitate to believe that, in
some way or another, they result from the properties of the component
elements of the water. We do not assume that a something called
"aquosity" entered into and took possession of the oxidated hydrogen as
soon as it was formed, and then guided the aqueous particles to their
places in the facets of the crystal, or amongst the leaflets of the
hoar-frost. On the contrary, we live in the hope and in the faith that,
by the advance of molecular physics, we shall by and by be able to see
our way as clearly from the constituents of water to the properties of
water, as we are now able to deduce the operations of a watch from the
form of its parts and the manner in which they are put together.
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