evolution does include the whole. At any rate, the materialist view of
nature does take in the whole, in such a way as the text indicates.]

Now, it is supposed that, in the beginning of the world, there was, in
space, such a nebula or mass of incandescent vapour, which, as it was
destined to cool down and form a world, philosophers have called "cosmic
gas."

This cosmic gas, in the course of time, began to lose its heat, and
consequently to liquefy and solidify, according to the different nature
of its components; and thus a globe with a solid crust was formed, the
surface of which was partly dry and partly occupied by water, and
diversified by the abundant production of the various earths, gases,
metals, and other substances with which we are familiar. These
substances, in time, and by the slow action of their own laws and
properties, combined or separated and produced further forms. But to
come at once to the important part of the theory, we must at once direct
our attention to four substances; these would certainly, it is said (and
that no doubt is quite true) be present; they are oxygen, hydrogen,
nitrogen, and carbon. The first three would be, when the earth assumed
anything like its present conditions of temperature and air-pressure,
invisible gases, as they are at present; the fourth is a substance which
forms the basis of charcoal, and which we see in a nearly pure form
crystallized in the diamond.

Now, if these substances are brought together under certain appropriate
conditions, the oxygen and hydrogen can combine to form _water_; the
carbon and the oxygen will form _carbonic acid_; while nitrogen will
join with hydrogen to form that pungent smelling substance with which we
are familiar as _ammonia_. Again, let us suppose that three compound