are not far from Helmonts Opinion about the Origination of Compound Bodies and perhaps too dislike not the Arguments which he imployes to prove it VVhat Helmontian Opinion and what Arguments do you mean askes Carneades VVhat You have been Newly Discoursing replies Eleutherius tells us that You cannot but know that this bold and Acute Spagyrist scruples not to Assert that all mixt Bodies spring from one Element and that Vegetables Animals Marchasites Stones Metalls c. are Materially but simple VVater disguis'd into these Various Formes by the plastick or Formative Virtue of their seeds And as for his Reasons you may find divers of them scatter'd up and down his writings the considerabl'st of which seem to be these three The Ultimate Reduction of mixt Bodies into Insipid VVater the Vicissitude of the supposed Elements and the production of perfectly mixt Bodies out of simple VVater And first he affirmes that the Sal circulatus Paracelsi or his Liquor Alkahest does adaequately resolve Plants Animals and Mineralls into one Liquor or more according to their several internall Disparities of Parts without Caput Mortuum or the Destruction of their seminal Virtues and that the Alkahest being abstracted from these Liquors in the same weight and Virtue wherewith it Dissolv'd them the Liquors may by frequent Cohobations from chalke or some other idoneous matter be Totally depriv'd of their feminal Endowments and return at last to their first matter Insipid VVater some other wayes he proposes here and there to divest some particular Bodies of their borrow'd shapes and make them remigrate to their first Simplicity The second Topick whence Helmont drawes his Arguments to prove VVater to be the Material cause of Mixt Bodies I told You was this that the other suppos'd Elements may be transmuted into one another But the Experiments by him here and there produc'd on this Occasion are so uneasie to be made and to be judg'd of that I shall not insist on them not to mention that if they were granted to be true his Inference from them is somewhat disputable and therefore I shall pass on to tell You That as in his First Argument our Paradoxical Author endeavours to prove Water the Sole Element of Mixt Bodies by their Ultimate Resolution when by his Alkahest or some other conquering Agent the Seeds have been Destroy'd which Disguis'd them or when by time those seeds are Weari'd or Exantlated or unable to Act their Parts upon the Stage of the Universe any Longer So in his Third Argument he Endeavours to evince the same Conclusion by the constitution of Bodies which he asserts to be nothing but Water Subdu'd by Seminal Virtues Of this he gives here and there in his Writings several Instances as to Plants and Animals but divers of them being Difficult either to be try'd or to be Understood and others of them being not altogether Unobnoxious to Exceptions I think you have singl'd out the Principal and less Questionable Experiment when you lately mention'd that of the Willow Tree And having thus Continues Eleutherius to Answer your Question given you a Summary Account of what I am Confident You know better then I do I shall be very glad to receive Your Sence of it if the giving it me will not too much Divert You from the Prosecution of your Discourse That If replies Carneades was not needlesly annex'd for thorowly to examine such an Hypothesis and such Arguments would require so many Considerations and Consequently so much time that I should not now have the Liesure to perfect such a Digression and much less to finish my Principle Discourse Yet thus much I shall tell You at present that you need not fear my rejecting this Opinion for its Novelty since however the Helmontians may in complement to their Master pretend it to be a new Discovery Yet though the Arguments be for the most part his the Opinion it self is very Antient For Diogenes Laertius and divers other Authors speak of Thales as the first among the Graecians that made disquisitions upon nature And of this Thales I Remember * De Natura Deorum Tully informes us that he taught all things were at first made of Water And it seems by Plutarch and Justin Martyr that the Opinion was Ancienter then he For they tell us that he us'd to defend his Tene tby the Testimony of Homer And a Greek Author the Scholiast of Apollonius upon these Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Argonaut 4. The Earth of Slime was made Affirms out of Zeno that the Chaos whereof all things were made was according to Hesiod Water which settling first became Slime and then condens'd into solid Earth And the same Opinion about the Generation of Slime seems to have been entertain'd by Orpheus Athenagoras out of whom one of the Antients cites this Testimony 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of Water Slime was made It seems also by what is delivered in Strabo out of another Author Universarumrerum primordia diversa esse faciendi autem mundi initium aquam Strabo Geograp lib. 15. circa medium concerning the Indians That they likewise held that all things had differing Beginnings but that of which the World was made was Water And the like Opinion has been by some of the Antients ascrib'd to the Phoenicians from whom Thales himself is conceiv'd to have borrow'd it as probably he Greeks did much of their Thelogie and as I am apt to think of their Philosophy too since the Devising of the Atomical Hypothesis commonly ascrib'd to Lucippus and his Disciple Democritus is by Learned Men attributed to one Moschus a Phoenician And possibly the Opinion is yet antienter than so For 't is known that the Phoenicians borrow'd most of their Learning from the Hebrews And among those that acknowledge the Books of Moses many have been inclin'd to think Water to have been the Primitive and Universal Matter by perusing the Beginning of Genesis where the Waters seem to be mention'd as the Material Cause not only of Sublunary Compounded Bodies but of all those that make up the Universe whose Component Parts did orderly as it were emerge out of that vast Abysse by the Operation of the Spirit of God who is said to have been moving Himself as hatching Females do as the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deuter. 32.11 Meracephet is said to Import and as it seems to signifie in one of the two other places Jerem. 23.9 wherein alone I have met with it in the Hebrew Bible upon the Face of the Waters which being as may be suppos'd Divinely Impregnated with the seeds of all things were by that productive Incubation qualify'd to produce them But you I presume Expect that I should Discourse of this Matter like a Naturalist not a Philologer Wherefore I shall add to Countenance Helmont's Opinion That whereas he gives not that I remember any Instance of any Mineral Body nor scarce of any Animal generated of Water a French Chymist Monsieur de
partly also or rather chiefly to intimate to you the grounds upon which I likewise differ from Helmont in this that whereas he ascribes almost all things and even diseases themselves to their determinate Seeds I am of opinion that besides the peculiar Fabricks of the Bodies of Plants and Animals and perhaps also of some Metals and Minerals which I take to be the Effects of seminal principles there are many other bodies in nature which have and deserve distinct and Proper names but yet do but result from such contextures of the matter they are made of as may without determinate seeds be effected by heat cold artificial mixtures and compositions and divers other causes which sometimes nature imployes of her own accord and oftentimes man by his power and skill makes use of to fashion the matter according to his Intentions This may be exemplified both in the productions of Nature and in those of Art of the first sort I might name multitudes but to shew how sleight a variation of Textures without addition of new ingredients may procure a parcel of matter divers names and make it be Lookt upon as Different Things I shall invite you to observe with me That Clouds Rain Hail Snow Froth and Ice may be but water having its parts varyed as to their size and distance in respect of each other and as to motion and rest And among Artificial Productions we may take notice to skip the Crystals of Tartar of Glass Regulus Martis-Stellatus and particularly of the Sugar of Lead which though made of that insipid Metal and sour salt of Vinager has in it a sweetnesse surpassing that of common Sugar and divers other qualities which being not to be found in either of its two ingredients must be confess'd to belong to the Concrete it self upon the account of its Texture This Consideration premis'd it will be I hope the more easie to perswade you that the Fire may as well produce some new textures in a parcel of matter as destroy the old Wherefore hoping that you have not forgot the Arguments formerly imploy'd against the Doctrine of the Tria prima namely that the Salt Sulphur and Mercury into which the Fire seems to resolve Vegetable and Animal Bodies are yet compounded not simple and Elementary Substances And that as appeared by the Experiment of Pompions the Tria prima may be made out of Water hoping I say that you remember These and the other Things that I formerly represented to the same purpose I shall now add only that if we doubt not the Truth of some of Helmonts Relation We may well doubt whether any of these Heterogeneities be I say not pre-existent so as to convene together when a plant or Animal is to be constituted but so much as in-existent in the Concrete whence they are obtain'd when the Chymists first goes about to resolve it For not to insist upon the un-inflamable Spirit of such Concretes because that may be pretended to be but a mixture of Phlegme and Salt the Oyle or Sulphur of Vegetables or Animals is according to him reducible by the help of Lixiviate Salts into Sope as that Sope is by the help of repeated Distillations from a Caput Mortuum of Chalk into insipid Water And as for the saline substance that seems separable from mixt bodies Omne autem Alcali additae pinguedine in aqueum liquorem qui tandem mera simplex aqua fit reducitur ut videre est in Sapone Lazurio lapide c. quoties per adjuncta fixa semen Pinguedinis deponit Helmont the same Helmonts tryals give us cause to think That it may be a production of the Fire which by transporting and otherwise altering the particles of the matter does bring it to a Saline nature For I know sayes he in the place formerly alledg'd to another purpose a way to reduce all stones into a meer Salt of equal weight with the stone whence it was produc'd and that without any of the least either Sulphur or Mercury which asseveration of my Author would perhaps seem less incredible to You if I durst acquaint You with all I could say upon that subject And hence by the way you may also conclude that the Sulphur and Mercury as they call them that Chymists are wont to obtain from compound Bodies by the Fire may possibly in many Cases be the productions of it since if the same bodies had been wrought upon by the Agents employ'd by Helmont they would have yielded neither Sulphur nor Mercury and those portions of them which the Fire would have presented Us in the forme of Sulphureous and Mercurial Bodies would have by Helmonts method been exhibited to us in the form of Salt But though sayes Eleutherius You have alledg'd very plausible Arguments against the tria Prima yet I see not how it will be possible for you to avoid acknowledging that Earth and Water are Elementary Ingredients though not of Mineral Concretes yet of all Animal and Vegetable Bodies Since if any of these of what sort soever be committed to Distillation there is regularly and constantly separated from it a phlegme or aqueous part and a Caput Mortuum or Earth I readily acknowledged answers Carneades it is not so easy to reject Water and Earth and especially the former as 't is to reject the Tria Prima from being the Elements of mixt Bodies but 't is not every difficult thing that is impossible I consider then as to Water that the chief Qualities which make men give that name to any visible Substance are that it is Fluid or Liquid and that it is insipid and inodorous Now as for the tast of these qualities I think you have never seen any of those separated substances that the Chymists call Phlegme which was perfectly devoyd both of Tast and Smell and if you object that yet it may be reasonably suppos'd that since the whole Body is Liquid the mass is nothing but Elementary Water faintly imbu'd with some of the Saline or Sulphureous parts of the same Concrete which it retain'd with it upon its Separation from the Other Ingredients To this I answer That this Objection would not appear so stong as it is plausible if Chymists understood the Nature of Fluidity and Compactnesse and that as I formerly observ'd to a Bodies being Fluid there is nothing necessary but that it be divided into parts small enough and that these parts be put into such a motion among themselves as to glide some this way and some that way along each others Surfaces So that although a Concrete were never so dry and had not any Water or other Liquor inexistent in it yet such a Comminution of its parts may be made by the fire or other Agents as to turn a great portion of them into Liquor Of this Truth I will give an instance employ'd by our friend here present as one of the most conducive of his experiments to Illustrate the nature of Salts If you Take then sea salt
what it was formerly yet I was not satisfi'd doubting the Earth was not dry I put it into an Oven the Second Time after the Bread was drawn and after I had taken it out and weighed it I found it to be the Same Weight So I Suppose there was no Moisture left in the Earth Neither do I think that the Pound and Halfe that was wanting was Drawn away by the Cucumber but a great Part of it in the Ordering was in Dust and the like wasted the Cucumbers are kept by themselves lest You should send for them But yet in this Tryal Eleutherius it appears that though some of the Earth or rather the dissoluble Salt harbour'd in it were wasted the main Body of the Plant consisted of Transmuted Water And I might add that a year after I caus'd the formerly mentioned Experiment touching large Pompions to be reiterated with so good success that if my memory does not much mis-inform me it did not only much surpass any that I made before but seem'd strangely to conclude what I am pleading for though by reason I have unhappily lost the particular Account my Gardiner writ me up of the Circumstances I dare not insist upon them The like Experiment may be as conveniently try'd with the seeds of any Plant whose growth is hasty and its size Bulky If Tobacco will in These Cold Climates Grow well in Earth undung'd it would not be amiss to make a Tryal with it for 't is an annual Plant that arises where it prospers sometimes as high as a Tall Man and I have had leaves of it in my Garden neer a Foot and a Halfe broad But the next time I Try this Experiment it shall be with several seeds of the same sort in the same pot of Earth that so the event may be the more Conspicuous But because every Body has not Conveniency of time and place for this Experiment neither I made in my Chamber some shorter and more Expeditions Tryals I took a Top of Spearmint about an Inch Long and put it into a good Vial full of Spring water so as the upper part of the Mint was above the neck of the Glass and the lower part Immers'd in the Water within a few Dayes this Mint began to shoot forth Roots into the Water and to display its Leaves and aspire upwards and in a short time it had numerous Roots and Leaves and these very strong and fragrant of the Odour of the Mint but the Heat of my Chamber as I suppose kill'd the Plant when it was grown to have a pretty thick Stalk which with the various and ramified Roots which it shot into the Water as if it had been Earth presented in its Transparent Flower-pot a Spectacle not unpleasant to behold The like I try'd with sweet Marjoram and I found the Experiment succeed also though somewhat more slowly with Balme and Peniroyal to name now no other Plants And one of these Vegetables cherish'd only by Water having obtain'd a competent Growth I did for Tryals sake cause to be Distill'd in a small Retort and thereby obtain'd some Phlegme a little Empyrcumaticall Spirit a small Quantity of adust Oyl and a Caput mortuum which appearing to be a Coal concluded it to consist of Salt and Earth but the Quantity of it was so small that I forbore to Calcine it The Water I us'd to nourish this Plant was not shifted nor renewed and I chose Spring-water rather than Rain-water because the latter is more discernably a kinde of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which though it be granted to be freed from grosser Mixtures seems yet to Contain in it besides the Steams of several Bodies wandering in the Air which may be suppos'd to impregnate it a certain Spirituous Substance which may be Extracted out of it and is by some mistaken for the Spirit of the World Corporify'd upon what Grounds and with what Probability I may elsewhere perchance but must not now Discourse to you But perhaps I might have sav'd a great part of my Labour For I finde that Helmont an Author more considerable for his Experiments than many Learned men are pleas'd to think him having had an Opportunity to prosecute an Experiment much of the same nature with those I have been now speaking of for five Years together obtain'd at the end of that time so notable a Quantity of Transmuted Water that I should scarce Think it fit to have his Experiment and Mine Mention'd together were it not that the Length of Time Requisite to this may deterr the Curiosity of some and exceed the leasure of Others and partly that so Paradoxical a Truth as that which these Experiments seem to hold forth needs to be Confirm'd by more Witnesses then one especially since the Extravagancies and Untruths to be met with in Helmonts Treatise of the Magnetick Cure of Wounds have made his Testimonies suspected in his other Writings though as to some of the Unlikely matters of Fact he delivers in them I might safely undertake to be his Compurgator But that Experiment of his which I was mentioning to You he sayes was this He took 200 pound of Earth dry'd in an Oven and having put it into an Earthen Vessel and moisten'd it with Raine water he planted in it the Trunk of a VVillow tree of five pound VVeight this he VVater'd as need required with Rain or with Distill'd VVater and to keep the Neighbouring Earth from getting into the Vessell he employ'd a plate of Iron tinn'd over and perforated with many holes Five years being efflux'd he took out the Tree and weighed ' it and with computing the leaves that fell during four Autumnes he found it to weigh 169 pound and about three Ounces And Having again Dry'd the Earth it grew in he found it want of its Former VVeight of 200 Pound about a couple only of Ounces so that 164 pound of the Roots VVood and Bark which Constituted the Tree seem to have Sprung from the VVater And though it appears not that Helmont had the Curiosity to make any Analysis of this Plant yet what I lately told You I did to One of the Vegetables I nourish'd with VVater only will I suppose keep You from Doubting that if he had Distill'd this Tree it would have afforded him the like Distinct Substances as another Vegetable of the same kind I need not Subjoyne that I had it also in my thoughts to try how Experiments to the same purpose with those I related to You would succeed in other Bodies then Vegetables because importunate Avocations having hitherto hinder'd me from putting my Design in Practise I can yet speak but Confecturally of the Success but the best is that the Experiments already made and mention'd to you need not the Assistance of new Ones to Verifie as much as my present task makes it concern me to prove by Experiments of this Nature One would suspect sayes Eleutherius after his long silence by what You have been discoursing that You
You will not grant to be sufficient for a true Mistion he must have the same Quarrel with Nature her self as with his Adversaties Wherefore Continues Eleutherius I cannot but somewhat marvail that Carneades should oppose the Doctrine of the Chymist in a Particular wherein they do as well agree with his old Mistress Nature as dissent from his old Adversary Aristotle I must not replies Carneades engage my self at present to examine thorowly the Controversies concerning Mistion And if there were no third thing but that I were reduc'd to embrace absolutely and unreservedly either the Opinion of Aristotle or that of the Philosophers that went before him I should look upon the latter which the Chymists have adopted as the more defensible Opinion But because differing in the Opinions about the Elements from both Parties I think I can take a middle Course and Discourse to you of Mistion after a way that does neither perfectly agree nor perfectly disagree with either as I will not peremptorily define whether there be not Cases wherein some Phaenomena of Mistion seem to favour the Opinion that the Chymists Patrons borrow'd of the Antients I shall only endeavour to shew You that there are some cases which may keep the Doubt which makes up my second General Consideration from being unreasonable I shall then freely acknowledge to You sayes Carneades that I am not over-well satisfi'd with the Doctrine that is ascribed to Aristotle concerning Mistion especially fince it teaches that the four Elements may again be separated from the mixt Body whereas if they continu'd not in it it would not be so much a Separation as a Production And I think the Ancient Philosophers that Preceded Aristotle and Chymists who have since receiv'd the same Opinion do speak of this matter more intelligibly if not more probably then the Peripateticks but though they speak Congruously enough to their believing that there are a certain Number of Primogeneal Bodies by whose Concourse all those we call Mixts are Generated and which in the Destruction of mixt Bodies do barely part company and recede from one another just such as they were when they came together yet I who meet with very few Opinions that I can entirely Acquiesce in must confess to You that I am inclin'd to differ not only from the Aristotelians but from the old Philosophers and the Chymists about the Nature of Mistion And if You will give me leave I shall Briefly propose to you my present Notion of it provided you will look upon it not so much as an Assertion as an Hypothesis in talking of which I do not now pretend to propose and debate the whole Doctrine of Mistion but to shew that 't is not Improbable that sometimes mingl'd substances may be so strictly united that it doth not by the usuall Operations of the Fire by which Chymists are wont to suppose themselves to have made the Analyses of mixt Bodies sufficiently appear that in such Bodies the Miscibilia that concurr'd to make them up do each of them retain its own peculiar Nature and by the Spagyrists Fires may be more easily extricated and Recover'd than Alter'd either by a Change of Texture in the Parts of the same Ingredient or by an Association with some parts of another Ingredient more strict than was that of the parts of this or that Miscibile among themselves At these words Eleu having press'd him to do what he propos'd and promis'd to do what he desir'd I consider then resumes Carneades that not to mention those improper Kinds of mistion wherein Homogeneous Bodies are Joyn'd as when Water is mingl'd with water or two Vessels full of the same kind of Wine with one another the mistion I am now to Discourse of seems Generally speaking to be but an Union per Minima of any two or more Bodies of differing Denominations as when Ashes and Sand are Colliquated into Glass or Antimony and Iron into Regulus Martis or Wine and Water are mingl'd and Sugar is dissolv'd in the Mixture Now in this general notion of Mistion it does not appear clearly comprehended that the Miscibilia or Ingredients do in their small Parts so retain their Nature and remain distinct in the Compound that they may thence by the Fire be again taken asunder For though I deny not that in some Mistions of certain permanent Bodies this Recovery of the same Ingredients may be made yet I am not convinc'd that it will hold in all or even in most or that it is necessarily deducible from Chymicall Experiments and the true Notion of Mistion To explain this a little I assume that Bodies may be mingl'd and that very durably that are not Elementary or resolv'd into Elements or Principles that they may be mingl'd as is evident in the Regulus of Colliquated Antimony and Iron newly mention'd and in Gold Coyne which lasts so many ages wherein generally the Gold is alloy'd by the mixture of a quantity greater or lesser in our Mints they use about a 12th part of either silver or Copper or both Next I consider that there being but one Universal matter of things as 't is known that the Aristotelians themselves acknowledge who call it Materia Prima about which nevertheless I like not all their Opinions the Portions of this matter seem to differ from One Another but in certain Qualities or Accidents fewer or more upon whose Account the Corporeal Substance they belong to receives its Denomination and is referr'd to this or that particular sort of Bodies so that if it come to lose or be depriv'd of those Qualities though it ceases not to be a Body yet it ceases from being that kind of Body as a Plant or Animal or Red Green Sweet Sowre or the like I consider that it very often happens that the small parts of Bodies cohere together but by immediate Contact and Rest and that however there are few Bodies whose minute Parts stick so close together to what cause soever their Combination be ascrib'd but that it is possible to meet with some other Body whose small Parts may get between them and so dis-joyn them or may be fitted to cohere more strongly with some of them then those some do with the rest or at least may be combin'd so closely with them as that neither the Fire nor the other usual Instruments of Chymical Anatomies will separate them These things being premis'd I will not peremptorily deny but that there may be some Clusters of Particules wherein the Particles are so minute and the Coherence so strict or both that when Bodies of Differing Denominations and consisting of such durable Clusters happen to be mingl'd though the Compound Body made up of them may be very Differing from either of the Ingredients yet each of the little Masses or Clusters may so retain its own Nature as to be again separable such as it was before As when Gold and Silver being melted together in a Due Proportion for in every Proportion the Refiners will tell
sorts then either three or four or five And if you will grant what will scarce be deny'd that Corpuscles of a compounded Nature may in all the wonted Examples of Chymists pass for Elementary I see not why you should think it impossible that as Aqua Fortis or Aqua Regis will make a Separation of colliquated Silver and Gold though the Fire cannot so there may be some Agent found out so subtile and so powerfull at least in respect of those particular compounded Corpuscles as to be able to resolve them into those more simple ones whereof they consist and consequently encrease the number of the Distinct Substances whereinto the mixt Body has been hitherto thought resoluble And if that be true which I recited to you a while ago out of Helmont concerning the Operations of the Alkahest which divides Bodies into other Distinct Substances both as to number and Nature then the Fire does it will not a little countenance my Conjecture But confining our selves to such wayes of Analyzing mix'd Bodies as are already not unknown to Chymists it may without Absurdity be Question'd whether besides those grosser Elements of Bodies which they call Salt Sulphur and Mercury there may not be Ingredients of a more Subtile Nature which being extreamly little and not being in themselves Visible may escape unheeded at the Junctures of the Destillatory Vessels though never so carefully Luted For let me observe to you one thing which though not taken notice of by Chymists may be a notion of good Use in divers Cases to a Naturalist that we may well suspect that there may be severall Sorts of Bodies which are not Immediate Objects of any one of our senses since we See that not only those little Corpuscles that issue out of the Loadstone and perform the Wonders for which it is justly admired But the Effluviums of Amber Jet and other Electricall Concretes though by their effects upon the particular Bodies dispos'd to receive their Action they seem to fall under the Cognizance of our Sight yet do they not as Electrical immediately Affect any of our senses as do the bodies whether minute or greater that we See Feel Taste c. But continues Carneades because you may expect I should as the Chymists do consider only the sensible Ingredients of Mixt Bodies let us now fee what Experience will even as to these suggest to us It seems then questionable enough whether from Grapes variously order'd there may not be drawn more distinct Substances by the help of the Fire then from most other mixt Bodies For the Grapes themselves being dryed into Raysins and distill'd will besides Alcali Phlegm and Earth yield a considerable quantity of an Empyreumatical Oyle and a Spirit of a very different nature from that of Wine Also the unfermented Juice of Grapes affords other distil'd Liquors then Wine doth The Juice of Grapes after fermentation will yield a Spiritus Ardens which if competently rectifyed will all burn away without leaving any thing remaining The same fermented Juice degenerating into Vinager yields an acid and corroding Spirit The same Juice turn'd up armes it self with Tartar out of which may be separated as out of other Bodies Phlegme Spirit Oyle Salt and Earth not to mention what Substances may be drawn from the Vine it self probably differing from those which are separated from Tartar which is a body by it self that has few resemblers in the World And I will further consider that what force soever you will allow this instance to evince that there are some Bodies that yield more Elements then others it can scarce be deny'd but that the Major part of bodies that are divisible into Elements yield more then three For besides those which the Chymists are pleased to name Hypostatical most bodies contain two others Phlegme and Earth which concurring as well as the rest to the constitution of Mixts and being as generally if not more found in their Analysis I see no sufficient cause why they should be excluded from the number of Elements Nor will it suffice to object as the Paracelsians are wont to do that the Tria prima are the most useful Elements and the Earth and Water but worthlesse and unactive for Elements being call'd so in relation to the constituting of mixt Bodies it should be upon the account of its Ingrediency not of its use that any thing should be affirmed or denyed to be an Element and as for the pretended uselessness of Earth and Water it would be consider'd that usefulnesse or the want of it denotes only a Respect or Relation to us and therefore the presence or absence of it alters not the Intrinsick nature of the thing The hurtful Teeth of Vipers are for ought I know useless to us and yet are not to be deny'd to be parts of their Bodies and it were hard to shew of what greater Use to Us then Phlegme and Earth are those Undiscern'd Stars which our New Telescopes discover to Us in many Blanched places of the Sky and yet we cannot but acknowledge them Constituent and Considerably great parts of the Universe Besides that whether or no the Phlegme and Earth be immediately Useful but necessary to constitute the Body whence they are separated and consequently if the mixt Body be not Useless to us those constituent parts without which it could not have been That mixt Body may be said not to be Unuseful to Us and though the Earth and Water be not so conspicuously Operative after separation as the other three more active Principles yet in this case it will not be amiss to remember the lucky Fable of Menemius Aggrippa of the dangerous Sedition of the Hands and Legs and other more busie parts of the Body against the seemingly unactive Stomack And to this case also we may not unfitly apply that Reasoning of an Apostle to another purpose If the Ear shall say because I am not the Eye I am not of the Body Is it therefore not of the Body If the whole Body were Eye where were the Hearing If the whole were for hearing where the smelling In a word since Earth and water appear as clearly and as generally as the other Principles upon the resolution of Bodies to be the Ingredients whereof they are made up and fince they are useful if not immediately to us or rather to Physitians to the Bodies they constitute and so though in somewhat a remoter way are serviceable to us to exclude them out of the number of Elements is not to imitate Nature But pursues Carneades though I think it Evident that Earth and Phlegme are to be reckon'd among the Elements of most Animal and Vegetable Bodies yet 't is not upon that Account alone that I think divers Bodies resoluble into more Substances then three For there are two Experiments that I have sometimes made to shew that at least some Mixts are divisible into more Distinct Substances then five The one of these Experiments though 't will be more
That if these sequestred substances where indeed the sulphurs of the Bodies whence they are drawn there would as well be a great Disparity betwixt Chymical Sulphurs obtain'd by Spirit of Wine as I have already shewn there is betwixt those obtain'd by Distillation in the forme of Oyles which will be evident from hence that not to urge that themselves ascribe distinct vertues to Mineral Tinctures extolling the Tincture of Gold against such and such Diseases the Tincture of Antimony or of its Glass against others and the Tincture of Emerauld against others 't is plain that in Tinctures drawn from Vegetables if the superfluous spirit of Wine be distill'd off it leaves at the bottom that thicker substance which Chymists use to call the Extract of the Vegetable And that these Extracts are endow'd with very differing Qualities according to the Nature of the Particular Bodies that afforded them though I fear seldom with so much of the specifick vertues as is wont to be imagin'd is freely confess'd both by Physitians and Chymists But Eleutherius sayes Carneades we may here take Notice that the Chymists do as well in this case as in many others allow themselves a License to abuse Words For not again to argue from the differing properties of Tinctures that they are not exactly pure and Elementary Sulphurs they would easily appear not to be so much as Sulphur's although we should allow Chymical Oyles to deserve that Name For however in some Mineral Tinctures the Natural fixtness of the extracted Body does not alwayes suffer it to be easily further resoluble into differing substances Yet in very many extracts drawn from Vegetables it may very easily be manifested that the spirit of Wine has not sequestred the sulphureous Ingredient from the saline and Mercurial ones but has dissolv'd for I take it to be a Solution the finer Parts of the Concrete without making any nice distinction of their being perfectly Sulphureous or not and united it self with them into a kind of Magistery which consequently must contain Ingredients or Parts of several sorts For we see that the stones that are rich in vitriol being often drench'd with rain-Water the Liquor will then extract a sine and transparent substance coagulable into Vitriol and yet though this Vitriol be readily dissoluble in Water it is not a true Elementary Salt but as You know a body resoluble into very differing Parts whereof one as I shall have occasion to tell You anon is yet of a Metalline and consequently not of an Elementary Nature You may consider also that common Sulphur is readily dissoluble in Oyle of Turpentine though notwithstanding its Name it abounds as well if not as much in Salt as in true Sulphur witness the great quantity of saline Liquor it affords being set to flame away under a glasse Bell. Nay I have which perhaps You will think strange with the same Oyle of Turpentine alone easily enough dissolv'd crude Antimony finely powder'd into a Blood-red Balsam wherewith perhaps considerable things may be perform'd in Surgery And if it were now Requisite I could tell You of some other Bodies such as Perhaps You would not suspect that I have been able to work upon with certain Chymical Oyles But instead of digressing further I shall make this use of the Example I have nam'd That 't is not unlikely but that Spirit of Wine which by its pungent tast and by some other Qualities that argue it better especially its Reduciblenesse according to Helmont into Alcali and Water seems to be as well of a Saline as of a Sulphureous Nature may well be suppos'd Capable of Dissolving Substances That are not meerly Elementary sulphurs though perhaps they may abound with Parts that are of kin thereunto For I find that Spirit of Wine will dissolve Gumm Lacca Benzoine and the Resinous Parts of Jallap and even of Guaiacum whence we may well suspect that it may from Spices Herbs and other lesse compacted Vegetables extract substances that are not perfect Sulphurs but mixt Bodies And to put it past Dispute there is many a Vulgar Extract drawn with Spirit of Wine which committed to Distillation will afford such differing substances as will Loudly proclaim it to have been a very compounded Body So that we may justly suspect that even in Mineral Tinctures it will not alwaies follow that because a red substance is drawn from the Concrete by spirit of Wine that Substance is its true and Elementary Sulphur And though some of these Extracts may perhaps be inflamable Yet besides that others are not and besides that their being reduc'd to such Minuteness of Parts may much facilitate their taking Fire besides this I say We see that common Sulphur common Oyle Gumm Lac and many Unctuous and Resinous Bodies will flame well enough though they be of very compounded natures Nay Travellers of Unsuspected Credit assure Us as a known thing that in some Northern Countries where Firr trees and Pines abound the poorer sort of Inhabitants use Long splinters of those Resinous Woods to burne instead of Candles And as for the rednesse wont to be met with in such solutions I could easily shew that 't is not necessary it should proceed from the Sulphur of the Concrete Dissolv'd by the Spirit of Wine if I had leasure to manifest how much Chymists are wont to delude themselves and others by the Ignorance of those other causes upon whose account spirit of Wine and other Menstruums may acquire a red or some other high colour But to returne to our Chymical Oyles supposing that they were exactly pure Yet I hope they would be as the best spirit of Wine is but the more inflamable and deflagrable And therefore since an Oyle can be by the Fire alone immediately turn'd into flame which is something of a very differing Nature from it I shall Demand how this Oyle can be a Primogeneal and Incorruptible Body as most Chymists would have their Principles Since it is further resoluble into flame which whether or no it be a portion of the Element of Fire as an Aristotelian would conclude is certainly something of a very differing Nature from a Chymical Oyle since it burnes and shines and mounts swiftly upwards none of which a Chymical Oyle does whilst it continues such And if it should be Objected that the Dissipated Parts of this flaming Oyle may be caught and collected again into Oyl or Sulphur I shall demand what Chymist appears to have ever done it and without Examining whether it may not hence be as well said that sulphur is but compacted Fire as that Fire is but diffus'd Sulphur I shall leave you to consider whether it may not hence be argu'd that neither Fire nor Sulphur are primitive and indestructible Bodies and I shall further observe that at least it will hence appear that a portion of matter may without being Compounded with new Ingredients by having the Texture and Motion of its small parts chang'd be easily by the means of the Fire
substances differing from one another And since many moderne Chymists and other Naturalists are pleased to take the Mercurial spirit of Bodies for the same Principle under differing names I must invite you to observe with me the great difference that is conspicuous betwixt all the Vegetable and Animal spirits I have mention'd and running Mercury I speak not of that which is commonly sold in shops that many of themselves will confesse to be a mixt Body but of that which is separated from Metals which by some Chymists that seem more Philosophers then the rest and especially by the above mentioned Claveus is for distinction sake called Mercurius Corporum Now this Metalline Liquor being one of those three Principles of which Mineral Bodies are by Spagyrists affirmed to be compos'd and to be resoluble into them the many notorious Differences betwixt them and the Mercuries as They call Them of Vegetables and Animals will allow me to inferr either that Minerals and the other two sorts of Mixt Bodies consist not of the same Elements or that those Principles whereinto Minerals are immediately resolved which Chymists with great ostentation shew us as the true principles of them are but Secundary Principles or Mixts of a peculiar sort which must be themselves reduc'd to a very differing forme to be of the same kind with Vegetable and Animal Liquors But this is not all for although I formerly told You how Little Credit there is to be given to the Chymical Processes commonly to be met with of Extracting the Mercuries of Metals Yet I will now add that supposing that the more Judicious of Them do not untruly affirme that they have really drawn true and running Mercury from several Metals which I wish they had cleerly taught Us how to do also yet it may be still doubted whether such extracted Mercuries do not as well differ from common Quicksilver and from one another as from the Mercuries of Vegetables and Animalls Claveus in his Apology speaking of some experiments whereby Metalline Mercuries may be fixt into the nobler metals Dixi autem de argento vivo a metallis prolicito quod vulgare ob nimiam frigiditatem humiditatem nimium concoctioni est contumax nec ab auro solum alterato coerceri potest Gast Clave in Apoll. adds that he spake of the Mercuries drawn from metals because common Quicksilver by reason of its excessive coldnesse and moisture is unfit for that particular kind of operation for which though a few lines before he prescribes in general the Mercuries of Metalline Bodies yet he chiefly commends that drawn by art from silver And elsewhere in the same Book he tells us that he himself tryed that by bare coction the quicksilver of Tin or Pewter argen um vivum ex stanno prolicitum may by an efficient cause as he speaks be turn'd into pure Gold And the Experienc'd Alexander van Suchten somewhere tells us that by a way he intimates may be made a Mercury of Copper not of the Silver colour of other Mercuries but green to which I shall add that an eminent person whose name his travells and learned writings have made famous lately assur'd me that he had more then once seen the Mercury of Lead which what ever Authors promise you will find it very difficult to make at least in any considerable quantity fixt into perfect Gold And being by me demanded whether or no any other Mercury would not as well have been changed by the same Operations he assured me of the Negative And since I am fallen upon the mention of the Mercuries of metals you will perhaps expect Eleutherius that I should say something of their two other principles but I must freely confess to you that what Disparity there may be between the salts and sulphurs of Metals and other Menerals I am not my self experienced enough in the separations and examens of them to venture to determine for as for the salts of Metals I formerly represented it as a thing much to be question'd whether they have any at all And for the processes of separation I find in Authors if they were what many of them are not successfully practicable as I noted above yet they are to be performed by the assistance of other bodies so hardly if upon any termes at all separable from them that it is very difficult to give the separated principles all their due and no more But the Sulphur of Antimony which is vehemently vomitive and the strongly scented Anodyne Sulphur of Vitriol inclines me to think that not only Mineral Sulphurs differ from Vegetable ones but also from one another retaining much of the nature of their Concretes The salts of metals and of some sort of minerals You will easily guesse by the Doubts I formerly express'd whether metals have any salt at all that I have not been so happy as yet to see perhaps not for want of curiosity But if Paracelsus did alwaies write so consentaneously to himself that his opinion were confidently to be collected from every place of his writings where he seems to expresse it I might safely take upon me to tell you that he both countenances in general what I have delivered in my Fourth main consideration and in particular warrants me to suspect that there may be a difference in metalline and mineral Salts as well as we find it in those of other bodies For Sulphur sayes he aliud in auro aliud in argento Paracel de Mineral Troct 1. pag. 141. aliud in ferro aliud in plumbo stanno c. sic aliud in Saphiro aliud in Smaragdo aliud in rubino chrysolito amethisto magnete c. Item aliud in lapidibus silice salibus fontibus c. nec vero tot sulphura tantum sed tot idem salia sal aliud in metallis aliud in gemmis aliud in lapidibus aliud in salibus aliud in vitriolo aliud in alumine similis etiam Mercurii est ratio Alius in Metallis alius in Gemmis c. Ita ut unicuique speciei suus peculiaris Mercurius sit Et tamen res saltem tres sunt una essentia est sulphur una est sal una est Mercurius Addo quod specialius adhuc singula dividantur aurum enim non unum sed multiplex ut et non unum pyrum pomum sed idem multiplex totidem etiam sulphura auri salia auri mercurii auri idem competit etiam metallis gemmis ut quot saphyri praestantiores laeviores c. tot etiam saphyrica sulphura saphyrica salia suphyrici Mercurii c. Idem verum etiam est de turconibus gemmis aliis universis From which passage Eleutherius I suppose you will think I might without rashness conclude either that my opinion is favoured by that of Paracelsus or that Paracelsus his opinion was not alwaies the same But because in divers other places of his writings he seems to talk at a differing rate of the three
Vessels be depriv'd of its silver-like Colour and be turn'd into a Red Body and from this Red Body without Addition likewise may be obtain'd a Mercury Bright and Specular as it was before So that I have here a lasting Colour Generated and Destroy'd as I have seen at pleasure without adding or taking away either Mercury Salt or Sulphur and if you take a clean and slender piece of harden'd steel and apply to it the flame of a candle at some little distance short of the point You shall not have held the Steel long in the flame but You shall perceive divers Colours as Yellow Red and Blew to appear upon the Surface of the metal and as it were run along in chase of one another towards the point So that the same body and that in one and the same part may not only have a new colour produc'd in it but exhibite successively divers Colours within a minute of an hour or thereabouts and any of these Colours may by Removing the Steel from the Fire become Permanent and last many years And this Production and Variety of Colours cannot reasonably be suppos'd to proceed from the Accession of any of the three Principles to which of them soever Chymists will be pleas'd to ascribe Colours especially considering that if you but suddenly Refrigerate that Iron First made Red hot it will be harden'd and Colourless again and not only by the Flame of a Candle but by any other equivalent heat Conveniently appli'd the like Colours will again be made to appear and succeed one another as at the First But I must not any further prosecute an Occasional Discourse though that were not so Difficult for me to do as I fear it would be for the Chymists to give a better Account of the other Qualities by their Principles then they have done of Colours And your Sennertus Himself though an Author I much value would I fear have been exceedingly puzl'd to resolve by the Tria Prima halfe that Catalogue of Problems Senuert de Con. seus Dissens pag. 165.166 which he challenges the Vulgar Peripateticks to explicate by their four Elements And supposing it were true that Salt or Sulphur were the Principle to which this or that Quality may be peculiarly referr'd yet though he that teaches us this teaches us something concerning That quality yet he Teaches us but something For indeed he does not Teach us That which can in any Tollerable measure satisfie an inquisitive Searcher after Truth For what is it to me to know that such a quality resides in such a Principle or Element whilst I remain altogether ignorant of the Cause of that quality and the manner of its production and Operation How little do I know more then any Ordinary Man of Gravity if I know but that the Heaviness of mixt bodies proceeds from that of the Earth they are compos'd of if I know not the reason why the Earth is Heavy And how little does the Chymist teach the Philosopher of the Nature of Purgatition if he only tells him that the Purgative Vertue of Medicines resides in their Salt For besides that this must not be conceded without Limitation since the purging parts of many Vegetables Extracted by the Water wherein they are infus'd are at most but such compounded Salts I mean mingl'd with Oyle and Spirit and Earth as Tartar and divers other Subjects of the Vegetable Kingdom afford And since too that Quicksilver precipitated either with Gold or without Addition into a powder is wont to be strongly enough Cathartical though the Chymists have not yet prov'd that either Gold or Mercury have any Salt at all much less any that is Purgative Besides this I say how little is it to me to know That 't is the Salt of the Rhubarb for Instance that purges if I find That it does not purge as Salt since scarce any Elementary Salt is in small quantity cathartical And if I know not how Purgation in general is effected in a Humane Body In a word as 't is one thing to know a mans Lodging and another to be acquainted with him so it may be one thing to know the subject wherein a Quality principally resides and another thing to have a right notion and knowledg of the quality its self Now that which I take to be the reason of this Chymical Deficiency is the same upon whose account I think the Aristotelian and divers other Theories incompetent to explicate the Origen of Qualities For I am apt to think that men will never be able to explain the Phaenomena of Nature while they endeavour to deduce them only from the Presence and Proportion of such or such material Ingredients and consider such ingredients or Elements as Bodies in a state of rest whereas indeed the greatest part of the affections of matter and consequently of the Phaenomena of nature seems to depend upon the motion and the continuance of the small parts of Bodies For 't is by motion that one part of matter acts upon another and 't is for the most part the texture of the Body upon which the moving parts strike that modifies to motion or Impression and concurrs with it to the production of those Effects which make up the chief part of the Naturalists Theme But sayes Eleutherius me thinks for all this you have left some part of what I alledg'd in behalf of the three principles unanswer'd For all that you have said will not keep this from being a useful Discovery that since in the Salt of one Concrete in the Sulphur of another and the Mercury of a third the Medicinal vertue of it resides that Principle ought to be separated from the rest and there the desired faculty must be sought for I never denyed Replyes Carneades that the Notion of the Tria Prima may be of some use but continues he laughing by what you now alledg for it it will but appear That it is useful to Apothecaries rather than to Philosophers The being able to make things Operative being sufficient to those whereas the Knowledge of Causes is the Thing looked after by These And let me Tell You Eleutherius even this it self will need to be entertained with some caution For first it will not presently follow That if the Purgative or other vertue of a simple may be easily extracted by Water or Spirit of Wine it Resides in the Salt or Sulphur of the Concrete Since unlesse the Body have before been resolved by the Fire or some Other Powerful Agent it will for the most part afford in the Liquors I have named rather the finer compounded parts of it self Than the Elementary ones As I noted before That Water will dissolve not only pure Salts but Crystals of Tartar Gumme Arabick Myrr'h and Other Compound Bodies As also Spirit of Wine will Dissolve not only the pure Sulphur of Concretes but likewise the whole Substance of divers Resinous Bodies as Benzoin the Gummous parts of Jallap Gumme Lacca and
Imaginary Substantial Form as by the aggregate of these Qualities If you consider these Things I say and that the varying of either the figure or the Size or the Motion or the Situation or Connexion of the Corpuscles whereof any of these Bodies is compos'd may alter the Fabrick of it you will possibly be invited to suspect with me that there is no great need that Nature should alwayes have Elements before hand whereof to make such Bodies as we call mixts And that it is not so easie as Chymists and others have hitherto Imagin'd to discern among the many differing Substances that may without any extraordinary skill be obtain'd from the same portion of matter Which ought to be esteemed exclusively to all the rest its in-existent Elementary Ingredients much lesse to determine what Primogeneal and Simple Bodies convened together to compose it To exemplify this I shall add to what I have already on several occasions Represented but this single instance You may remember Eleutherius that I formerly intimated to you that besides Mint and Pompions I produced divers other Vegetables of very differing Natures out of Water Wherefore you will not I presume think it incongruous to suppose that when a slender Vine-slip is set into the ground and takes root there it may likewise receive its Nutriment from the water attracted out of the earth by his roots or impell'd by the warm'th of the sun or pressure of the ambient air into the pores of them And this you will the more easily believe if you ever observ'd what a strange quantity of Water will Drop out of a wound given to the Vine in a convenient place at a seasonable time in the Spring and how little of Tast or Smell this Aqua Vitis as Physitians call it is endow'd with notwithstanding what concoction or alteration it may receive in its passage through the Vine to discriminate it from common Water Supposing then this Liquor at its first entrance into the roots of the Vine to be common Water Let Us a little consider how many various Substances may be obtain'd from it though to do so I must repeat somewhat that I had a former occasion to touch upon And first this Liquor being Digested in the plant and assimilated by the several parts of it is turn'd into the Wood Bark Pith Leaves c. of the Vine The same Liquor may be further dry'd and fashon'd into Vine-buds and these a while after are advanced unto sour Grapes which express'd yield Verjuice a Liquor very differing in several qualities both from Wine and other Liquors obtainable from the Vine These soure Grapes being by the heat of the Sun concocted and ripened turne to well tasted Grapes Those if dry'd in the Sun and Distill'd afford a faetid Oyle and a piercing Empyreumatical Spirit but not a Vinous Spirit These dry'd Grapes or Raisins boyl'd in a convenient proportion of Water make a sweet Liquor which being betimes distill'd afford an Oyle and Spirit much like those of the Raisins themselves If the juice of the Grapes be squeez'd out and put to Ferment it first becomes a sweet and turbid Liquor then grows lesse sweet and more clear and then affords in common Distillations not an Oyle but a Spirit which though inflamable like Oyle differs much from it in that it is not fat and that it will readily mingle with Water I have likewise without Addition obtain'd in processe of time and by an easie way which I am ready to teach you from one of the noblest sorts of Wine pretty store of pure and curiously figured Crystals of Salt together with a great proportion of a Liquor as sweet almost as Hony and these I obtained not from Must but True and sprightly Wine besides the Vinous Liquor the fermented Juice of Grapes is partly turned into liquid Dregs or Leeze and partly into that crust or dry feculancy that is commonly called Tartar and this Tartar may by the Fire be easily divided into five differing substances four of which are not Acid and the other not so manifestly Acid as the Tartar it self The same Vinous Juice after some time especially if it be not carefully kept Degenerates into that very sour Liquor called Vinegar from which you may obtain by the Fire a Spirit and a Crystalline Salt differing enough from the Spirit and Lixiviate Salt of Tartar And if you pour the Dephlegm'd Spirit of the Vinegar upon the Salt of Tartar there will be produc'd such a Conflict or Ebullition as if there were scarce two more contrary Bodies in Nature and oftentimes in this Vinager you may observe part of the matter to be turned into an innumerable company of swimming Animals which our Friend having divers years ago observed hath in one of his Papers taught us how to discover clearly without the help of a Microscope Into all these various Schemes of matter or differingly Qualifyed Bodies besides divers others that I purposely forbear to mention may the Water that is imbib'd by the roots of the Vine be brought partly by the formative power of the plant and partly by supervenient Agents or Causes without the visible concurrence of any extraneous Ingredient but if we be allowed to add to the Productions of this transmuted Water a sew other substances we may much encrease the Variety of such Bodies although in this second sort of Productions the Vinous parts seem scarce to retain any thing of the much more fix'd Bodies wherewith they were mingl'd but only to have by their Mixture with them acquir'd such a Disposition that in their recess occasion'd by the Fire they came to be alter'd as to shape or Bigness or both and associated after a New manner Thus as I formerly told you I did by the Addition of a Caput Mortuum of Antimony and some other Bodies unfit for Distillation obtain from crude Tartar store of a very Volatile and Crystalline Salt differing very much in smell and other Qualities from the usuall salts of Tartar But sayes Eleutherius interrupting him at these Words if you have no restraint upon you I would very gladly before you go any further be more particularly inform'd how you make this Volatile Salt because you know that such Multitudes of Chymists have by a scarce imaginable Variety of wayes attempted in Vain the Volatilization of the Salt of Tartar that divers learned Spagyrists speak as if it were impossible to make any thing out of Tartar that shall be Volatile in a Saline Forme or as some of them express it in forma sicca I am very farr from thinking answers Carneades that the Salt I have mention'd is that which Paracelsus and Helmont mean when they speak of Sal Tartari Volatile and ascribe such great things to it For the Salt I speak of falls extreamly short of those Virtues not seeming in its Tast Smel and other Obvious Qualities to differ very much though something it do differ from Salt of Harts-horn and other Volatile Salts drawn