combine and make soap, by the intervention of alkaline salt. From matter
diversely combined, in proportions varied almost to infinity, result all
physical and moral bodies; the properties and qualities of which are
essentially different, with modes of action more or less complex: which
are either understood with facility, or difficult of comprehension,
according to the elements or matter that has entered into their
composition, and the various modifications this matter has undergone.

It is thus, from the reciprocity of their attraction, the primitive
imperceptible particles of matter, which constitute bodies, become
perceptible, form compound substances, aggregate masses; by the union of
similar and analogous matter, whose essences fit them to cohere. The
same bodies are dissolved, their union broken, whenever they undergo the
action of matter inimical to their junction. Thus by degrees are formed,
plants, metals, animals, men; each grows, expands, and increases in its
own system or order; sustaining itself in its respective existence, by
the continual attraction of analogous matter; to which it becomes
united, and by which it is preserved and strengthened. Thus, certain
aliments become fit for the sustenance of man, whilst others destroy his
existence: some are pleasant to him, strengthen his habit; others are
repugnant to him, weaken his system: in short, never to separate
physical from moral laws, it is thus that men, mutually attracted to
each other by their reciprocal wants, form those unions which we
designate by the terms, MARRIAGE, FAMILIES, SOCIETIES, FRIENDSHIPS,
CONNEXIONS: it is thus that virtue strengthens and consolidates them;
that vice relaxes or totally dissolves them.

Of whatever nature may be the combination of beings, their motion has
always one direction or tendency: without direction we could not have
any idea of motion: this direction is regulated by the properties of