WATER AND THE METALS
The picture we draw of the metals at this stage is thus quite a simple one, but we shall later be able to build on these beginnings.
In our comparison of water with mercury, we have already seen in what relation they stand to each other. Water is the upper sphere of the fluid on earth. Water is always associated with the atmosphere and so with the whole universe. All life moreover has its origin in the water and it is active in every living thing. Mercury on the other hand has retained the fluid state of an earlier world. It is the modern representative of a world of fluid metals cut off from the cosmos. The metals which we dig out of the veins of the earth, belong to the lower sphere. The contrast between these two spheres is strongly impressed on the children when they see what great heat is needed to make mercury disappear and then appear again like rain as it cools, while water evaporates quite easily into the atmosphere. The distillation of mercury requires the might of fire.
These demonstrations with metals have shewn activities which stand midway between combustion and salt-formation. In water, as in metals, the characteristics are, drop-formation, fluidity and the tendency to evaporate and again condense. Water and the metals may be regarded as representatives of the middle or circulatory processes on earth. Having thus given the children a brief cross-section of chemistry in its three main stages, we can conclude by contrasting the three processes. Firstly, we demonstrate combustion by burning some sulphur, and thus show the tremendous contradiction such burning involves, calling up as it does all the powers of the will. Secondly, we obtain crystals from a salt solution, a cold tranquil process which can be calmly observed. And finally we distil water or mercury—contrasts and reconciliation, the water ever moving and ever again returning to rest and also the unique mercury; they swing between the airy and the fluid. The foundations have now been laid of those fundamental chemical concepts which have a bearing alike on the processes of external nature and of the human organism.