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It seems to me that this reasoning rests on an unscientific use of the term element; it rests on giving to that class-name the meaning, substances asserted to be undecomposable.
As, in the course of generations, the young birds of this race begin to display a fear of man before yet they have been injured by him, it is an unavoidable inference that the nervous system of the race has been organically modified by these experiences: we have no choice but to conclude that when a young bird is thus led to fly, it is because the impression produced on its senses by the approaching man, entails, through an incipiently-reflex action, a partial excitement of all those nerves which in its ancestors had been excited under the like conditions; that this partial excitement has its accompanying painful consciousness; and that the vague painful consciousness thus arising, constitutes emotion proper emotion undecomposable into specific experiences, and therefore seemingly homogeneous.
A line of demarcation is drawn between elements, meaning thereby forms of matter said to be undecomposable but probably capable of separation into unlike parts, and true elements, meaning thereby groups of identical undecomposable particles.
Since those early days of the century when the electric battery performed its miracles and seemingly reached its limitations in the hands of Davy, many new elementary substances have been discovered, but no single element has been displaced from its position as an undecomposable body.
The earliest impressions which the mind can assimilate are the undecomposable sensations produced by resistance, light, sound, etc. Manifestly, decomposable states of consciousness cannot exist before the states of consciousness out of which they are composed. There can be no idea of form until some familiarity with light in its gradations and qualities, or resistance in its different intensities, has been acquired; for, as has been long known, we recognise visible form by means of varieties of light, and tangible form by means of varieties of resistance. Similarly, no articulate sound is cognisable until the inarticulate sounds which go to make it up have been learned. And thus must it be in every other case. Following, therefore, the necessary law of progression from the simple to the complex, we should provide for the infant a sufficiency of objects presenting different degrees and kinds of resistance, a sufficiency of objects reflecting different amounts and qualities of light, and a sufficiency of sounds contrasted in their loudness, their pitch and their timbre. How fully this
If we proceed on the supposition that the so-called elements are compounds, and if this law, if not universal, holds of undecomposable substances as of decomposable, then there are two implications. The one is that those compoundings and recompoundings by which the elements were formed, must have been accompanied by degrees of heat exceeding any degrees of heat known to us.
Just as our concept of space, which is apt to be thought a simple, undecomposable concept, is yet resolvable into experiences quite different from that state of consciousness which we call space; so, probably, the sentiment of affection or reverence is compounded of elements that are severally distinct from the whole which they make up.
What chemists, for convenience, call elementary substances, are merely substances which they have thus far failed to decompose; but, bearing in mind past experiences, they do not dare to say that they are absolutely undecomposable.
The procedure given below applies to silicates undecomposable by acids, of which the mineral feldspar is taken as a typical example. The sieve may be made by placing a piece of the bolting cloth over the top of a small beaker in which the ground mineral is placed, holding the cloth in place by means of a rubber band below the lip of the beaker.
Hence the existence of a class of substances which are undecomposable and therefore seem simple, appears to be an implication; and the corollary is that these were formed during early stages of terrestrial concentration, under conditions of heat and pressure which we cannot now parallel.
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