Chemical analysis and synthesis go no farther than to the separation of particles one from another, and to their reunion. No new creation or destruction of matter is within the reach of chemical agency. We might as well attempt to introduce a new planet into the solar system, or to annihilate one already in existence, as to create or destroy a particle of hydrogen.

There is a conservation of matter and of energy, there may be a conservation of life; or if not of life, of something which transcends life.

There is no consumption, unless that which is lost by one body passes into another. Explanation. In nature there is no annihilation; and therefore the thing which is consumed either passes into the air, or is received into some adjacent body.

There is nothing more certain in nature than that it is impossible for any body to be utterly annihilated.
[Stating the conservation of matter.]

Xenophanes of Kolophon ... says that nothing comes into being, nor is anything destroyed, nor moved; and that the universe is one and is not subject to change.

[When combustion occurs,] one body, at least, is oxygenated, and another restored, at the same time, to its combustible state... This view of combustion may serve to show how nature is always the same, and maintains her equilibrium by preserving the same quantities of air and water on the surface of our globe: for as fast as these are consumed in the various processes of combustion, equal quantities are formed, and rise regenerated like the Phoenix from her ashes.
Fulhame believed 'that water was the only source of oxygen, which oxygenates combustible bodies' and that 'the hydrogen of water is the only substance that restores bodies to their combustible state.'