satisfi'd that there must be four Elements though no Man had ever yet made any sensible tryal to discover their Number yet they are not destitute of Experience to satisfie others that are wont to be more sway'd by their senses then their Reason And I shall proceed to consider the testimony of Experience when I shall have first advertis'd You that if Men were as perfectly rational as 't is to be wish'd they were this sensible way of Probation would be as needless as 't is wont to be imperfect For it is much more high and Philosophical to discover things a priore then a posteriore And therefore the Peripateticks have not been very sollicitous to gather Experiments to prove their Doctrines contenting themselves with a few only to satisfie those that are not capable of a Nobler Conviction And indeed they employ Experiments rather to illustrate then to demonstrate their Doctrines as Astronomers use Sphaeres of pastboard to descend to the capacities of such as must be taught by their senses for want of being arriv'd to a clear apprehension of purely Mathematical Notions and Truths I speak thus Eleutherius adds Themistius only to do right to Reason and not out of Diffidence of the Experimental proof I am to alledge For though I shall name but one yet it is such a one as will make all other appear as needless as it self will be found Satisfactory For if You but consider a piece of green-Wood burning in a Chimney You will readily discern in the disbanded parts of it the four Elements of which we teach It and other mixt bodies to be compos'd The fire discovers it self in the flame by its own light the smoke by ascending to the top of the chimney and there readily vanishing into air like a River losing it self in the Sea sufficiently manifests to what Element it belongs and gladly returnes The water in its own form boyling and hissing at the ends of the burning Wood betrayes it self to more then one of our senses and the ashes by their weight their firiness and their dryness put it past doubt that they belong to the Element of Earth If I spoke continues Themistius to less knowing Persons I would perhaps make some Excuse for building upon such an obvious and easie Analysis but 't would be I fear injurious not to think such an Apology needless to You who are too judicious either to think it necessary that Experiments to prove obvious truths should be farr fetch'd or to wonder that among so many mixt Bodies that are compounded of the four Elements some of them should upon a slight Analysis manifestly exhibite the Ingredients they consist of Especially since it is very agreeable to the Goodness of Nature to disclose even in some of the most obvious Experiments that Men make a Truth so important and so requisite to be taken notice of by them Besides that our Analysis by how much the more obvious we make it by so much the more suit-table it will be to the Nature of that Doctrine which 't is alledged to prove which being as clear and intelligible to the Understanding as obvious to the sense t is no marvail the learned part of Mankind should so long and so generally imbrace it For this Doctrine is very different from the whimseys of Chymists and other Modern Innovators of whose Hypotheses we may observe as Naturalists do of less perfect Animals that as they are hastily form'd so they are commonly short liv'd For so these as they are often fram'd in one week are perhaps thought fit to be laughed at the next and being built perchance but upon two or three Experiments are destroyed by a third or fourth whereas the doctrine of the four Elements was fram'd by Aristotle after he had leasurely considered those Theories of former Philosophers which are now with great applause revived as discovered by these latter ages And had so judiciously detected and supplyed the Errors and defects of former Hypotheses concerning the Elements that his Doctrine of them has been ever since deservedly embraced by the letter'd part of Mankind All the Philosophers that preceded him having in their several ages contributed to the compleatness of this Doctrine as those of succeeding times have acquiesc'd in it Nor has an Hypothesis so deliberately and maturely established been called in Question till in the last Century Paracelfus and some few other sooty Empiricks rather then as they are fain to call themselves Philosophers having their eyes darken'd and their Brains troubl'd with the smoke of their own Furnaces began to rail at the Peripatetick Doctrine which they were too illiterate to understand and to tell the credulous World that they could see but three Ingredients in mixt Bodies which to gain themselves the repute of Inventors they endeavoured to disguise by calling them instead of Earth and Fire and Vapour Salt Sulphur and Mercury to which they gave the canting title of Hypostatical Principles but when they came to describe them they shewed how little they understood what they meant by them by disagreeing as much from one another as from the truth they agreed in opposing For they deliver their Hypotheses as darkly as their Processes and 't is almost as impossible for any sober Man to find their meaning as 't is for them to find their Elixir And indeed nothing has spread their Philosophy but their great Brags and undertakings notwithstanding all which sayes Themistius smiling I scarce know any thing they have performed worth wondering at save that they have been able to draw Philoponus to their Party and to engage him to the Defence of an unintelligible Hypothesis who knowes so well as he does that Principles ought to be like Diamonds as well very clear as perfectly solid Themistius having after these last words declared by his silence that he had finished his Discourse Carneades addressing himself as his Adversary had done to Eleutherius returned this Answer to it I hop'd for Demonstration but I perceive Themistius hopes to put me off with a Harangue wherein he cannot have given me a greater Opinion of his Parts then he has given me Distrust for his Hypothesis since for it even a Man of such Learning can bring no better Arguments The Rhetorical part of his Discourse though it make not the least part of it I shall say nothing to designing to examine only the Argumentative part and leaving it to Philoponus to answer those passages wherein either Paracelsus or Chymists are concern'd I shall observe to You that in what he has said besides he makes it his Business to do these two things The one to propose and make out an Experiment to demonstrate the common Opinion about the four Elements And the other to insinuate divers things which he thinks may repair the weakness of his Argument from Experience and upon other Accounts bring some credit to the otherwise defenceless Doctrine he maintains To begin then with his Experiment of the burning Wood it seems
to me to be obnoxious to not a few considerable Exceptions And first if I would now deal rigidly with my Adversary I might here make a great Question of the very way of Probation which he and others employ without the least scruple to evince that the Bodies commonly call'd mixt are made up of Earth Air Water and Fire which they are pleas'd also to call Elements namely that upon the suppos'd Analysis made by the fire of the former sort of Concretes there are wont to emerge Bodies resembling those which they take for the Elements For not to Anticipate here what I foresee I shall have occasion to insist on when I come to discourse with Philoponus concerning the right that fire has to pass for the proper and Universal Instrument of Analysing mixt Bodies not to Anticipate that I say if I were dispos'd to wrangle I might alledge that by Themistius his Experiment it would appear rather that those he calls Elements are made of those he calls mixt Bodies then mix'd Bodies of the Elements For in Themistius's Analyz'd Wood and in other Bodies dissipated and alter'd by the fire it appears and he confesses that which he takes for Elementary Fire and Water are made out of the Concrete but it appears not that the Concrete was made up of Fire and Water Nor has either He or any Man for ought I know of his perswasion yet prov'd that nothing can be obtained from a Body by the fire that was not Pre-existent in it At this unexpected objection not only Themistius but the rest of the company appear'd not a little surpriz'd but after a while Philoponus conceiving his opinion as well as that of Aristotle concern'd in that Objection You cannot sure sayes he to Carneades propose this Difficulty not to call it Cavill otherwise then as an Exercise of wit and not as laying any weight upon it For how can that be separated from a thing that was not existent in it When for instance a Refiner mingles Gold and Lead and exposing this Mixture upon a Cuppell to the violence of the fire thereby separates it into pure and resulgent Gold and Lead which driven off together with the Dross of the Gold is thence call'd Lithargyrium Auri can any man doubt that sees these two so differing substances separated from the Mass that they were existent in it before it was committed to the fire I should replies Carneades allow your Argument to prove something if as Men see the Refiners commonly take before hand both Lead and Gold to make the Mass you speak of so we did see Nature pull down a parcell of the Element of Fire that is fancy'd to be plac'd I know not how many thousand Leagues off contiguous to the Orb of the Moon and to blend it with a quantity of each of the three other Elements to compose every mixt Body upon whose Resolution the Fire presents us with Fire and Earth and the rest And let me add Philoponus that to make your Reasoning cogent it must be first prov'd that the fire do's only take the Elementary Ingredients asunder without otherwise altering them For else 't is obvious that Bodies may afford substances which were not pre-existent in them as Flesh too long kept produces Magots and old Cheese Mites which I suppose you will not affirm to be Ingredients of those Bodies Now that fire do's not alwayes barely separate the Elementary parts but sometimes at least alter also the Ingredients of Bodies if I did not expect ere long a better occasion to prove it I might make probable out of your very Instance wherein there is nothing Elementary separated by the great violence of the Refiners fire the Gold and Lead which are the two Ingredients separated upon the Analysis being confessedly yet perfectly mixt Bodies and the Litharge being Lead indeed but such Lead as is differing in consistence and other Qualities from what it was before To which I must add that I have sometimes seen and so questionlesse have you much oftener some parcells of Glasse adhering to the Test or Cuppel and this Glass though Emergent as well as the Gold or Litharge upon your Analysis you will not I hope allow to have been a third Ingredient of the Mass out of which the fire produc'd it Both Philoponus and Themistius were about to reply when Eleutherius apprehending that the Prosecution of this Dispute would take up time which might be better employ d thought fit to prevent them by saying to Carneades You made at least half a Promise when you first propos'd this Objection that you would not now at least insist on it nor indeed does it seem to be of absolute necessity to your cause that you should For though you should grant that there are Elements it would not follow that there must be precisely four And therefore I hope you will proceed to acquaint us with your other and more considerable Objections against Themistius's Opinion especially since there is so great a Disproportion in Bulke betwixt the Earth Water and Air on the one part and those little parcells of resembling substances that the fire separates from Concretes on the other part that I can scarce think that you are serious when to lose no advantage against your Adversary you seem to deny it to be rational to conclude these great simple Bodies to be the Elements and not the Products of compounded ones What you alledge replies Carneades of the Vastness of the Earth and Water has long since made me willing to allow them to be the greatest and chief Masses of Matter to be met with here below But I think I could shew You if You would give me leave that this will prove only that the Elements as You call them are the chief Bodies that make up the neighbouring part of the World but not that they are such Ingredients as every mixt Body must consist of But since You challenge me of something of a Promise though it be not an entire one Yet I shall willingly perform it And indeed I intended not when I first mention'd this Objection to insist on it at present against Themistius as I plainly intimated in my way of proposing it being only desirous to let you see that though I discern'd my Advantages yet I was willing to forego some of them rather then appear a rigid Adversary of a Cause so weak that it may with safety be favourably dealt with But I must here profess and desire You to take Notice of it that though I pass on to another Argument it is not because I think this first invalid For You will find in the Progress of our Dispute that I had some reason to question the very way of Probation imploy'd both by Peripateticks and Chymists to evince the being and number of the Elements For that there are such and that they are wont to be separated by the Analysis made by Fire is indeed taken for granted by both Parties but has not for ought
because insipid must be Elementary may not groundlesly be doubted For I remember the Candid and Eloquent Petrus Laurembergius in his Notes upon Sala's Aphorismes affirmes that he saw an insipid Menstruum that was a powerfull Dissolvent and if my Memory do not much mis-informe me could dissolve Gold And the water which may be Drawn from Quicksilver without Addition though it be almost Tastless You will I believe think of a differing Nature from simple Water especially if you Digest in it Appropriated Mineralls To which I shall add but this that this Consideration may be further extended For I see no Necessity to conceive that the Water mention'd in the Beginning of Genesis as the Universal Matter was simple and Elementary VVater since though we should Suppose it to have been an Agitated Congeries or Heap consisting of a great Variety of Seminal Principles and Rudiments and of other Corpuscles fit to be subdu'd and Fashion'd by them it might yet be a Body Fluid like VVater in case the Corpuscles it was made up of were by their Creator made small enough and put into such an actuall Motion as might make them Glide along one another And as we now say the Sea consists of VVater notwithstanding the Saline Terrestrial and other Bodies mingl'd with it such a Liquor may well enough be called VVater because that was the greatest of the known Bodies whereunto it was like Though that a Body may be Fluid enough to appear a Liquor and yet contain Corpuscles of a very differing Nature You will easily believe if You but expose a good Quantity of Vitriol in a strong Vessel to a Competent Fire For although it contains both Aqueous Earthy Saline Sulphureous and Metalline Corpuscles yet the whole Mass will at first be Fluid like water and boyle like a seething pot I might easily Continues Carneades enlarge my self on such Considerations if I were Now Oblig'd to give You my Judgment of the Thalesian and Helmontian Hypothesis But Whether or no we conclude that all things were at first Generated of Water I may Deduce from what I have try'd Concerning the Growth of Vegetables nourish'd with water all that I now propos'd to my Self or need at present to prove namely that Salt Spirit Earth and ev'n Oyl though that be thought of all Bodies the most opposite to Water may be produc'd out of Water and consequently that a Chymical Principle as well as a Peripatetick Element may in some cases be Generated anew or obtain'd from such a parcel of Matter as was not endow'd with the form of such aprinciple or Element before And having thus Eleutherius Evinc'd that 't is possible that such Substances as those that Chymists are wont to call their Tria Prima may be Generated anew I must next Endeavour to make it Probable that the Operation of the Fire does Actually sometimes not only divide Compounded Bodies into smal Parts but Compound those Parts after a new Manner whence Consequently for ought we Know there may Emerge as well Saline and Sulphureous Substances as Bodies of other Textures And perhaps it will assist us in our Enquiry after the Effects of the Operations of the Fire upon other Bodies to Consider a little what it does to those Mixtures which being Productions of the Art of Man We best know the Composition of You may then be pleas'd to take Notice that though Sope is made up by the Sope-Boylers of Oyle or Grease and Salt and Water Diligently Incorporated together yet if You expose the Mass they Constitute to a Graduall Fire in a Retort You shall then indeed make a Separation but not of the same Substances that were United into Sope but of others of a Distant and yet not an Elementary Nature and especially of an Oyle very sharp and Faetid and of a very Differing Quality from that which was Employ'd to make the Sope so if you Mingle in a due Proportion Sal Armoniack with Quick-Lime and Distill them by Degrees of Fire You shall not Divide the Sal Armoniack from the Quick-Lime though the one be a Volatile and the other a Fix'd Substance but that which will ascend will be a Spirit much more Fugitive Penetrant and stinking then Sal Armoniack and there will remain with the Quick-Lime all or very near all the Sea Salt that concurr'd to make up the Sal Armoniack concerning which Sea Salt I shall to satisfie You how well it was United to the Lime informe You that I have by making the Fire at length very Vehement caus'd both the Ingredients to melt in the Retort it self into one Mass and such Masses are apt to Relent in the Moist Air. If it be here Objected that these Instances are taken from factitious Concretes which are more Compounded then those which Nature produces I shall reply that besides that I have Mention'd them as much to Illustrate what I propos'd as to prove it it will be Difficult to Evince that Nature her self does not make Decompound Bodies I mean mingle together such mixt Bodies as are already Compounded of Elementary or rather of more simple ones For Vitriol for Instance though I have sometimes taken it out of Minerall Earths where Nature had without any assistance of Art prepar'd it to my Hand is really though Chymists are pleas'd to reckon it among Salts a De-compounded Body Consisting as I shall have occasion to declare anon of a Terrestriall Substance of a Metal and also of at least one Saline Body of a peculiar and not Elementary Nature And we see also in Animals that their blood may be compos'd of Divers very Differing Mixt Bodies since we find it observ'd that divers Sea-Fowle tast rank of the Fish on which they ordinarily feed and Hipocrates himself Observes that a Child may be purg'd by the Milke of the Nurse if she have taken Elaterium which argues that the purging Corpuscles of the Medicament Concurr to make up the Milke of the Nurse and that white Liquor is generally by Physitians suppos'd to be but blanch'd and alter'd Blood And I remember I have observ'd not farr from the Alps that at a certain time of the Year the Butter of that Country was very Offensive to strangers by reason of the rank tast of a certain Herb whereon the Cows were then wont plentifully to feed But proceeds Carneades to give you Instances of another kind to shew that things may be obtain'd by the Fire from a Mixt Body that were not Pre-existent in it let Me Remind You that from many Vegetables there may without any Addition be Obtain'd Glass a Body which I presume You will not say was Pre-existent in it but produc'd by the Fire To which I shall add but this one Example more namely that by a certain Artificial way of handling Quicksilver You may without Addition separate from it at least a 5th or 4th part of a clear Liquor which with an Ordinary Peripatetick would pass for VVater and which a Vulgar Chymist would not scruple to
declar'd or at least how they can be mingl'd as our Peripateticks would have it For whereas Aristotle tells us that if a Drop of Wine be put into ten thousand Measures of Water the Wine being Overpower'd by so Vast a Quantity of Water will be turn'd into it he speaks to my Apprehension very improbably For though One should add to that Quantity of Water as many Drops of Wine as would a Thousand times exceed it all yet by his Rule the whole Liquor should not be a Crama a Mixture of Wine and Water wherein the Wine would be Predominant but VVater only Since the Wine being added but by a Drop at a time would still Fall into nothing but VVater and Consequently would be turn'd into it And if this would hold in Metals too 't were a rare secret for Goldsmiths and Refiners For by melting a Mass of Gold or Silver and by but casting into it Lead or Antimony Grain after Grain they might at pleasure within a reasonable Compass of time turn what Quantity they desire of the Ignoble into the Noble Metalls And indeed since a Pint of wine and a pint of water amount to about a Quart of Liquor it seems manifest to sense that these Bodies doe not Totally Penetrate one another as one would have it but that each retains its own Dimensions and Consequently that they are by being Mingl'd only divided into minute Bodies that do but touch one another with their Surfaces as do the Grains of VVheat Rye Barley c. in a heap of severall sorts of Corn And unless we say that as when one measure of wheat for Instance is Blended with a hundred measures of Barley there happens only a Juxta-position and Superficial Contact betwixt the Grains of wheat and as many or thereabouts of the Grains of Barley So when a Drop of wine is mingl'd with a great deal of water there is but an Apposition of so many Vinous Corpuscles to a Correspondent Number of Aqueous ones Unless I say this be said I see not how that Absurdity will be avoyded whereunto the Stoical Notion of mistion namely by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Confusion was Liable according to which the least Body may be co-extended with the greatest Since in a mixt Body wherein before the Elements were Mingl'd there was for Instance but one pound of water to ten thousand of Earth yet according to them there must not be the least part of that Compound that Consisted not as well of Earth as water But I insist Perhaps too long sayes Eleutherius upon the proofs afforded me by the Nature of Mistion Wherefore I will but name Two or Three other Arguments whereof the first shall be that according to Aristotle himself the motion of a mixt Body followes the Nature of the Predominant Element as those wherein the Earth prevails tend towards the Centre of heavy Bodies And since many things make it Evident that in divers Mixt Bodies the Elementary Qualities are as well Active though not altogether so much so as in the Elements themselves it seems not reasonable to deny the actual Existence of the Elements in those Bodies wherein they Operate To which I shall add this Convincing Argument that Experience manifests and Aristotle Confesses it that the Miscibilia may be again separated from a mixt Body as is Obvious in the Chymical Resolutions of Plants and Animalls which could not be unless they did actually retain their formes in it For since according to Aristotle and I think according to truth there is but one common Mass of all things which he has been pleas'd to call Materia Prima And since t is not therefore the Matter but the Forme that Constitutes and Discriminates Things to say that the Elements remain not in a Mixt Body according to their Formes but according to their Matter is not to say that they remain there at all Since although those Portions of Matter were Earth and water c. before they concurr'd yet the resulting Body being once Constituted may as well be said to be simple as any of the Elements the Matter being confessedly of the same Nature in all Bodies and the Elementary Formes being according to this Hypothesis perish'd and abolish'd And lastly and if we will Consult Chymical Experiments we shall find the Advantages of the Chymical Doctrine above the Peripatetick Title little less then Palpable For in that Operation that Refiners call Quartation which they employ to purifie Gold although three parts of Silver be so exquisitely mingl'd by Fusion with a fourth Part of Gold whence the Operation is Denominated that the resulting Mass acquires severall new Qualities by virtue of the Composition and that there is scarce any sensible part of it that is not Compos'd of both the metalls Yet if You cast this mixture into Aqua Fortis the Silver will be dissolv'd in the Menstruum and the Gold like a dark or black Powder will fall to the Bottom of it and either Body may be again reduc'd into such a Metal as it was before which shews that it retain'd its Nature notwithstanding its being mixt per Minima with the other We likewise see that though one part of pure Silver be mingled with eight or ten Parts or more of Lead yet the Fire will upon the Cuppel easily and perfectly separate them again And that which I would have you peculiarly Consider on this Occasion is that not only in Chymicall Anatomies there is a Separation made of the Elementary Ingredients but that some Mixt Bodies afford a very much greater Quantity of this or that Element or Principle than of another as we see that Turpentine and Amber yield much more Oyl and Sulphur than they do Water whereas Wine which is confess'd to be a perfectly mixt Bodie yields but a little Inflamable Spirit or Sulphur and not much more Earth but affords a vast proportion of Phlegm or water which could not be if as the Peripateticks suppose every even of the minutest Particles were of the same nature with the whole and consequently did contain both Earth and Water and Aire and Fire Wherefore as to what Aristotle principally and almost only Objects that unless his Opinion be admitted there would be no true and perfect Mistion but onely Aggregates or Heaps of contiguous Corpuscles which though the Eye of Man cannot discerne yet the Eye of a Lynx might perceive not to be of the same Nature with one another and with their Totum as the Nature of Mistion requires if he do not beg the Question and make Mistion to consist in what other Naturalists deny to be requisite to it yet He at least objects That as a great Inconvenience which I cannot take for such till he have brought as Considerable Arguments as I have propos'd to prove the contrary to evince that Nature makes other Mistions than such as I have allowed wherein the Miscibilia are reduc'd into minute Parts and United as farr as sense can discerne which if
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
and less of our Opposition but since the Thing that they pretend is not so much to contribute a Notion toward the Improvement of Philosophy as to make this Notion attended by a few lesse considerable ones pass for a New Philosophy it self Nay since they boast so much of this phancie of theirs that the famous Quercetanus scruples not to write that if his most certain Doctrine of the three Principles were sufficiently Learned Examin'd and Cultivated it would easily Dispel all the Darkness that benights our minds and bring in a Clear Light that would remove all Difficulties This School affording Theorems and Axiomes irrefragable and to be admitted without Dispute by impartial Judges and so useful withal as to exempt us from the necessity of having recourse for want of the knowledg of causes to that Sanctuary of the igorant Occult Qualities since I say this Domestick Notion of the Chymists is so much overvalued by them I cannot think it unfit they should be made sensible of their mistake and be admonish'd to take in more fruitful and comprehensive Principles if they mean to give us an account of the Phaenomena of Nature and not confine themselves and as far as they can others to such narrow Principles as I fear will scarce inable them to give an account I mean an intelligible one of the tenth part I say not of all the Phaenomena of Nature but even of all such as by the Leucippian or some of the other sorts of Principles may be plausibly enough explicated And though I be not unwilling to grant that the incompetency I impute to the Chymical Hypothesis is but the same which may be Objected against that of the four Elements and divers other Doctrines that have been maintain'd by Learnedmen yet since 't is the Chymical Hypothesis only which I am now examining I see not why if what I impute to it be a real inconvenience either it should cease to be so or I should scruple to object it because other Theories are lyable thereunto as well as the Hermetical For I know not why a Truth should be thought lesse a Truth for the being fit to overthrow variety of Errors I am oblig'd to You continues Carneades a little smiling for the favourable Opinion You are pleas'd to express of my Equity if there be no design in it But I need not be tempted by an Artifice or invited by a Complement to acknowledge the great service that the Labours of Chymists have done the Lovers of useful Learning nor even on this occasion shall their Arrogance hinder my Gratitude But since we are as well examining to the truth of their Doctrine as the merit of their industry I must in order to the investigation of the first continue a reply to talk at the rate of the part I have assum'd And tell you that when I acknowledg the usefulness of the Labours of Spagyrists to Natural Philosophy I do it upon the score of their experiments not upon that of Their Speculations for it seems to me that their Writings as their Furnaces afford as well smoke as light and do little lesse obscure some subjects then they illustrate others And though I am unwilling to deny that 't is difficult for a man to be an Accomplisht Naturalist that is a stranger to Chymistry yet I look upon the common Operations and practices of Chymists almost as I do on the Letters of the Alphabet without whose knowledge 't is very hard for a man to become a Philosopher and yet that knowledge is very far from being sufficient to make him One. But sayes Carneades resuming a more serious Look to consider a little more particularly what you alledg in favour of the Chymical Doctrine of the Tria Prima though I shall readily acknowledge it not to be unuseful and that the Divisers and Embracers of it have done the Common-Wealth of Learning some service by helping to destroy that excessive esteem or rather veneration wherewith the Doctrine of the four Elements was almost as generally as undeservedly entertain'd yet what has been alledg'd concerning the usefulness of the Tria Prima seems to me liable to no contemptible Difficulties And first as for the very way of Probation which the more Learned and more Sober Champions of the Chymical cause employ to evince the Chymical Principles in Mixt Bodies it seems to me to be farr enough from being convincing This grand and leading Argument your Sennertus Himself who layes Great weight upon it and tells us that the most Learned Philosophers employ this way of Reasoning to prove the most important things proposes thus Ubicunque sayes he pluribus eaedem affectiones qualitates insunt per commune quoddam Principium insint necesse est sicut omnia sunt Gravia propter terram calida propter Ignem At Colores Odores Sapores esse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 similia alia mineralibus Metallis Gemmis Lapidibus Plantis Animalibus insunt Ergo per commune aliquod principium subiectum insunt At tale principium non sunt Elementa Nullam enim habent ad tales qualitates producendas potentiam Ergo alia principia unde fluant inquirenda sunt In the Recital of this Argument sayes Carneades I therefore thought fit to retain the Language wherein the Author proposes it that I might also retain the propriety of some Latine Termes to which I do not readily remember any that fully answer in English But as for the Argumentation it self 't is built upon a precarious supposition that seems to me neither Demonstrable nor true for how does it appear that where the same Quality is to be met with in many Bodies it must belong to them upon the Account of some one Body whereof they all partake For that the Major of our Authors Argument is to be Understood of the Material Ingredients of bodies appears by the Instances of Earth and Fire he annexes to explain it For to begin with that very Example which he is pleas'd to alledge for himself how can he prove that the Gravity of all Bodies proceeds from what they participate of the Element of Earth Since we see that not only common Water but the more pure Distill'd Rain Water is heavy and Quicksilver is much heavier than Earth it self though none of my Adversaries has yet prov'd that it contains any of that Element And I the Rather make use of this Example of Quicksilver because I see not how the Assertors of the Elements will give any better Account of it then the Chymists For if it be demanded how it comes to be Fluid they will answer that it participates much of the Nature of Water And indeed according to them Water may be the Predominant Element in it since we see that several Bodies which by Distillation afford Liquors that weigh more then their Caput Mortuum do not yet consist of Liquor enough to be Fluid Yet if it be demanded how Quicksilver comes to be so heavy then 't is reply'd that
again his Paper I think it were not very difficult to confure if his Arguments were as considerable as our time will probably prove short for the remaining and more necessary Part of my Discourse wherefore referring You for an Answer to what was said concerning the Dissipated Parts of a burnt piece of green Wood to what I told Themistius on the like occasion I might easily shew You how sleightly and superficially our Guntherus talks of the dividing the flame of Green Wood into his four Elements When he makes that vapour to be air which being caught in Glasses and condens'd presently discovers it self to have been but an Aggregate of innumerable very minute drops of Liquor and When he would prove the Phlegmes being compos'd of Fire by that Heat which is adventitious to the Liquor and ceases upon the absence of what produc'd it whether that be an Agitation proceeding from the motion of the External Fire or the presence of a Multitude of igneous Atomes pervading the pores of the Vessel and nimbly permeating the whole Body of the Water I might I say urge these and divers other Weaknesses of His Discourse But I will rather take Notice of what is more pertinent to the Occasion of this Digression namely that Taking it for Granted that Fluidity with which he unwarily seems to confound Humidity must proceed from the Element of Water he makes a Chymical Oyle to Consist of that Elementary Liquor and yet in the very next Words proves that it consists also of Fire by its Inflamability not remembring that exquisitely pure Spirit of Wine is both more Fluid then Water it self and yet will Flame all away without leaving the Least Aqueous Moisture behind it and without such an Amurca and Soot as he would Deduce the presence of Earth from So that the same Liquor may according to his Doctrine be concluded by its great Fluidity to be almost all Water and by its burning all away to be all disguised Fire And by the like way of Probation our Author would shew that the fixt salt of Wood is compounded of the four Elements For sayes he being turn'd by the violence of the Fire into steames it shews it self to be of kin to Air whereas I doubt whether he ever saw a true fixt Salt which to become so must have already endur'd the violence of an Incinerating Fire brought by the Fire alone to ascend in the Forme of Exhalations but I do not doubt that if he did and had caught those Exhalations in convenient Vessels he would have found them as well as the Steames of common Salt c. of a Saline and not an Aereal Nature And whereas our Authour takes it also for Granted that the Fusibility of Salt must be Deduc'd from Water it is indeed so much the Effect of heat variously agitating the Minute Parts of a Body without regard to Water that Gold which by its being the heavyest and fixtest of Bodies should be the most Earthy will be brought to Fusion by a strong Fire which sure is more likely to drive away then increase its Aqueous Ingredient if it have any and on the other side for want of a sufficient agitation of its minute parts Ice is not Fluid but Solid though he presumes also that the Mordicant Quality of Bodies must proceed from a fiery ingredient whereas not to urge that the Light and inflamable parts which are the most likely to belong to the Element of Fire must probably be driven away by that time the violence of the Fire has reduc'd the Body to ashes Not to urge this I I say nor that Oyle of Vitriol which quenches Fire burnes the Tongue and flesh of those that Unwarily tast or apply it as a caustick doth it is precarious to prove the Presence of Fire in fixt salts from their Caustick power unlesse it were first shewn that all the Qualities ascribed to salts must be deduc'd from those of the Elements which had I Time I could easily manifest to be no easy talk And not to mention that our Authour makes a Body as Homogeneous as any he can produce for Elementary belong both to Water and Fire Though it be neither Fluid nor Insipid like Water nor light and Volatile like Fire he seems to omit in this Anatomy the Element of Earth save That he intimates That the salt may pass for that But since a few lines before he takes Ashes for Earth I see not how he will avoid an Inconsistency either betwixt the Parts of his Discourse or betwixt some of them and his Doctrine For since There is a manifest Difference betwixt the Saline and the insipid Parts of Ashes I see not how substances That Disagree in such Notable Qualities can be both said to be Portions of an Element whose Nature requires that it be Homogeneous especially in this case where an Analysis by the Fire is suppos'd to have separated it from the admixture of other Elements which are confess'd by most Aristotelians to be Generally found in common Earth and to render it impure And sure if when we have consider'd for how little a Disparities sake the Peripateticks make these Symbolizing Bodies Aire and Fire to be two Distinct Elements we shall also consider that the Saline part of Ashes is very strongly Tasted and easily soluble in Water whereas the other part of the same Ashes is insipid and indissoluble in the same Liquor Not to add that the one substance is Opacous and the other somewhat Diaphanous nor that they differ in Divers other Particulars If we consider those things I say we shall hardly think that both these Substances are Elementary Earth And as to what is sometimes objected that their Saline Tast is only an Effect of Incineration and Adustion it has been elsewhere fully reply'd to when propos'd by Themistius and where it has been prov'd against him that however insipid Earth may perhaps by Additaments be turn'd into Salt yet 't is not like it should be so by the Fire alone For we see that when we refine Gold and Silver the violentest Fires We can Employ on them give them not the least Rellish of Saltness And I think Philoponus has rightly observ'd that the Ashes of some Concretes contain very little salt if any at all For Refiners suppose that bone-ashes are free from it and therefore make use of them for Tests and Cuppels which ought to be Destitute of Salt lest the Violence of the Fire should bring them to Vitrification And having purposely and heedfully tasted a Cuppel made of only bone-ashes and fair water which I had caus'd to be expos'd to a Very Violent Fire acuated by the Blast of a large pair of Double Bellows I could not perceive that the force of the Fire bad imparted to it the least Saltness or so much as made it less Insipid But sayes Carneades since neither You nor I love Repetitions I shall not now make any of what else was urg'd against Themistius but rather invite
the Elements is more applauded by the Moderns as pretending highly to be grounded upon Experience And to deal not only fairly but favourably with them I will allow them to take in Earth and Water to their other Principles Which I consent to the rather that my Discourse may the better reach the Tenents of the Peripateticks who cannot plead for any so probably as for those two Elements that of fire above the Air being Generally by Judicious Men exploded as an Imaginary thing And the Air not concurring to compose Mixt Bodies as one of their Elements but only lodging in their pores or Rather replenishing by reason of its Weight and Fluidity all those Cavities of bodies here below whether compounded or not that are big enough to admit it and are not fill'd up with any grosser substance And to prevent mistakes I must advertize You that I now mean by Elements as those Chymists that speak plainest do by their Principles certain Primitive and Simple or perfectly unmingled bodies which not being made of any other bodies or of one another are the Ingredients of which all those call'd perfectly mixt Bodies are immediately compounded and into which they are ultimately resolved now whether there be any one such body to be constantly met with in all and each of those that are said to be Elemented bodies is the thing I now question By this State of the controversie you will I suppose Guess that I need not be so absur'd as to deny that there are such bodies as Earth and Water and Quicksilver and Sulphur But I look upon Earth and Water as component parts of the Universe or rather of the Terrestrial Globe not of all mixt bodies And though I will not peremptorily deny that there may sometimes either a running Mercury or a Combustible Substance be obtain'd from a Mineral or even a Metal yet I need not Concede either of them to be an Element in the sence above declar'd as I shall have occasion to shew you by and by To give you then a brief account of the grounds I intend to proceed upon I must tell you that in matters of Philosophy this seems to me a sufficient reason to doubt of a known and important proposition that the Truth of it is not yet by any competent proof made to appear And congruously herunto if I shew that the grounds upon which men are perswaded that there are Elements are unable to satisfie a considering man I suppose my doubts will appear rational Now the Considerations that induce men to think that there are Elements may be conveniently enough referr'd to two heads Namely the one that it is necessary that Nature make use of Elements to constitute the bodies that are reputed Mixt. And the other That the Resolution of such bodies manifests that nature had compounded them of Elementary ones In reference to the former of these Considerations there are two or three things that I have to Represent And I will begin with reminding you of the Experiments I not long since related to you concerning the growth of pompions mint and other vegetables out of fair water For by those experiments its seems evident that Water may be Transmuted into all the other Elements from whence it may be inferr'd both That 't is not every Thing Chymists will call Salt Sulphur or Spirit that needs alwayes be a Primordiate and Ingenerable body And that Nature may contex a Plant though that be a perfectly mixt Concrete without having all the Elements previously presented to her to compound it of And if you will allow the relation I mention'd out of Mounsieur De Rochas to be True then may not only plants but Animals and Minerals too be produced out of Water And however there is little doubt to be made but that the plants my tryals afforded me as they were like in so many other respects to the rest of the plants of the same Denomination so they would in case I had reduc'd them to putrefaction have likewise produc'd Wormes or other infects as well as the resembling Vegetables are wont to do so that Water may by Various Seminal Principles be successively Transmuted into both plants and Animals And if we consider that not only Men but even sucking Children are but too often Tormented with Solid Stones but that divers sorts of Beasts themselves whatever Helmont against Experience think to the contrary may be Troubled with great and Heavy stones in their Kidneys and Bladders though they Feed but upon Grass and other Vegetables that are perhaps but Disguised Water it will not seem improbable that even some Concretes of a mineral Nature may Likewise be form'd of Water We may further Take notice that as a Plant may be nourisht and consequently may Consist of Common water so may both plants and Animals perhaps even from their Seminal Rudiments consist of compound Bodies without having any thing meerly Elementary brought them by nature to be compounded by them This is evident in divers men who whilst they were Infants were fed only with Milk afterwards Live altogether upon Flesh Fish wine and other perfectly mixt Bodies It may be seen also in sheep who on some of our English Downs or Plains grow very fat by feeding upon the grasse without scarce drinking at all And yet more manifestly in the magots that breed and grow up to their full bignesse within the pulps of Apples Pears or the like Fruit. We see also that Dungs that abound with a mixt Salt give a much more speedy increment to corn and other Vegetables than Water alone would do And it hath been assur'd me by a man experienc'd in such matters that sometimes when to bring up roots very early the Mould they were planted in was made over-rich the very substance of the Plant has rasted of the Dung. And let us also consider a Graft of one kind of Fruit upon the upper bough of a Tree of another kind As for instance the Ciens of a Pear upon a White-thorne for there the ascending Liquor is already alter'd either by the root or in its ascent by the bark or both wayes and becomes a new mixt body as may appear by the differing qualities to be met with in the saps of several trees as particularly the medicinal vertue of the birch-Birch-Water which I have sometimes drunk upon Helmonts great and not undeserved commendation Now the graft being fasten'd to the stock must necessarily nourish its self and produce its Fruit only out of this compound Juice prepared for it by the Stock being unable to come at any other aliment And if we consider how much of the Vegetable he feeds upon may as we noted above remain in an Animal we may easily suppose That the blood of that Animal who Feeds upon this though it be a Well constituted Liquor and have all the differing Corpuscles that make it up kept in order by one praesiding form may be a strangely Decompounded Body many of its parts being
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
must work on them the same way and divide them into just such parts both for nature and Number as the Fire dissipates them into For since as I noted before the Bulk and shape of the small Parts of bodies together with their Fitness and Unfitness to be easily put into Motion may make the liquors or other substances such Corpuscles compose as much to differ from each other as do some of the Chymical principles Why may not something happen in this case not unlike what is usuall in the grosser divisions of bodies by Mechanical Instruments Where we see that some Tools reduce Wood for Instance into darts of several shapes bignesse and other qualities as Hatchets and Wedges divide it into grosser parts some more long and slender as splinters and some more thick and irregular as chips but all of considerable bulk but Files and Saws makes a Comminution of it into Dust which as all the others is of the more solid sort of parts whereas others divide it into long and broad but thin and flexible parts as do Planes And of this kind of parts it self there is also a variety according to the Difference of the Tools employ'd to work on the Wood the shavings made by the plane being in some things differing from those shives or thin and flexible pieces of wood that are obtain'd by Borers and these from some others obtainable by other Tools Some Chymical Examples applicable to this purpose I have elsewhere given you To which I may add that whereas in a mixture of Sulphur and Salt of Tartar well melted and incorporated together the action of pure spirit of wine digested on it is to separate the sulphureous from the Alcalizate Parts by dissolving the former and leaving the latter the action of Wine probably upon the score of its copious Phlegme upon the same mixture is to divide it into Corpuscles consisting of both Alcalizate and Sulphureous Parts united And if it be objected that this is but a Factitious Concrete I answer that however the instance may serve to illustrate what I propos'd if not to prove it and that Nature her self doth in the bowels of the Earth make Decompounded Bodies as we see in Vitriol Cinnaber and even in Sulphur it self I will not urge that the Fire divides new Milk into five differing Substances but Runnet and Acid Liquors divide it into a Coagulated matter and a thin Whey And on the other side churning divides it into Butter and Butter-milk which may either of them be yet reduc'd to other substances differing from the former I will not presse this I say nor other instances of this Nature because I cannot in few words answer what may be objected that these Concretes sequestred without the help of the Fire may by it be further divided into Hypostatical Principles But I will rather represent That whereas the same spirit of Wine will dissociare the Parts of Camphire and make them one Liquor with it self Aqua Fortis will also disjoyn them and put them into motion but so as to keep them together and yet alter their Texture into the form of an Oyle I know also an uncompounded Liquor that an extraordinary Chymist would not allow to be so much as Saline which doth as I have try'd from Coral it self as fixt as divers judicious writers assert that Concrete to be not only obtain a noble Tincture without the Intervention of Nitre or other Salts but will carry over the Tincture in Distillation And if some reasons did not forbid me I could now tell you of a Menstruum I make my self that doth more odly dissociate the parts of Minerals very fixt in the fire So that it seems not incredible that there may be some Agent or way of Operation found whereby this or that Concrete if not all Firme Bodies may be resolv'd into parts so very minute and so unapt to stick close to one another that none of them may be fixt enough to stay behind in a strong Fire and to be incapable of Distillation nor consequently to be look'd upon as Earth But to return to Helmont the same Authour somewhere supply's me with another Argument against the Earth's being such an Element as my Adversaries would have it For he somewhere affirms that he can reduce all the Terrestrial parts of mixt bodies into infipid water whence we may argue against the Earths being one of their Elements even from that Notion of Elements which you may remember Philoponus recited out of Aristotle himself when he lately disputed for his Chymists against Themistius And here we may on this occasion consider that since a Body from which the Fire hath driven away its looser parts is wont to be look'd upon as Earth upon the Account of its being endow'd with both these qualities Tastlessenesse and Fixtnesse for Salt of Tartar though Fixt passes not among the Chymists for Earth because 't is strongly Tasted if it be in the power of Natural Agents to deprive the Caput Mortuum of a body of either of those two Qualities or to give them both to a portion of matter that had them not both before the Chymists will not easily define what part of a resolv'd Concrete is earth and make out that that Earth is a primary simple and indestructible Body Now there are some cases wherein the more skilful of the Vulgar Chymists themselves pretend to be able by repeated Cohobations and other fit Operations to make the Distilled parts of a Concrete bring its own Caput Mortuum over the Helme in the forme of a Liquor in which state being both Fluid and Volatile you will easily believe it would not be taken for Earth And indeed by a skilful but not Vulgar way of managing some Concretes there may be more effected in this kind then you perhaps would easily think And on the other side that either Earth may be Generated or at least Bodies that did not before appear to be neer Totally Earth may be so alter'd as to pass for it seems very possible if Helmont have done that by Art which he mentions in several places Novi item modos quibus totum Salpetiae in terram convertitur totumque Sulphur semel dissolutum fixetur in Pulvecrem terreum Helmont in Compl. atque Mist Elementor Sect. 24. especially where He sayes that he knowes wayes whereby Sulphur once dissolv'd is all of it fix'd into a Terrestrial Powder and the whole Bodie of Salt-Petre may be turn'd into Earth Which last he elsewhere sayes is Done by the Odour only of a certain Sulphureous Fire And in another place He mentions one way of doing this which I cannot give you an Account of because the Materialls I had prepar'd for Trying it were by a Servants mistake unhappily thrown away And these Last Arguments may be confirm'd by the Experiment I have often had occasion to mention concerning the Mint I produc'd out of Water And partly by an Observation of Rondeletius concerning the Growth of Animals also
Nourish'd but by Water which I remember'd not to mention when I discours'd to you about the Production of things out of Water Lib 1. cap. 2. This Diligent VVriter then in his instructive book of fishes affirmes That his Wife kept a fish in a Glass of water without any other Food for three years in which space it was constantly augmented till at last it could not come out of the Place at which it was put in and at length was too big for the glass it self though that were of a large capacity And because there is no just reason to doubt that this Fish if Distill'd would have yielded the like differing substances with other Animals And However because the Mint which I had out of water afforded me upon Distillation a good quantity of Charcoal I think I may from thence inferr that Earth it self may be produc'd out of Water or if you please that water may be transmuted into Earth and consequently that though it could be prov'd that Earth is an Ingredient actually in-existent in the Vegetable and Animal Bodies whence it may be obtain'd by Fire yet it would not necessarily follow that Earth as a pre-existent Element Does with other Principles convene to make up those Bodies whence it seems to have been separated After all is said sayes Eleutherius I have yet something to Object that I cannot but think considerable since Carneades Himself alledg'd it as such for continues Eleutherius smiling I must make bold to try whether you can as luckily answer your own Arguments as those of your Antagonists I mean pursues he that part of your Concessions wherein you cannot but remember that you supply'd your Adversaries with an Example to prove that there may be Elementary Bodies by taking Notice that Gold may be an Ingredient in a multitude of differing Mixtures and yet retain its Nature notwithstanding all that the Chymists by their Fires and Corrosive Waters are able to do to Destroy it I sufficiently intimated to you at that time replies Carneades that I propos'd this Example chiefly to shew you how Nature may be Conceived to have made Elements not to prove that she actually has made any And you know that a posse ad esse the Inference will not hold But continues Carneades to answer more directly to the Objection drawn from Gold I must tell You that though I know very well that divers of the more sober Chymists have complain'd of the Vulgar Chymists as of Mountebanks or Cheats for pretending so vainly as hitherto they have done to Destroy Gold Yet I know a certain Menstruum which our Friend has made and intends shortly to communicate to the Ingenious of so piercing and powerfull a Quality That if notwithstanding much care and some skill I did not much deceive my self I have with it really destroy'd even refin'd Gold and brought it into a Metalline Body of another colour and Nature as I found by Tryals purposely made And if some just Considerations did not for the present Forbid it I could Perchance here shew you by another Experiment or Two of my own Trying that such Menstruums may be made as to entice away and retain divers parts from Bodies which even the more Judicious and Experienc'd Spagyrists have pronounc'd irresoluble by the Fire Though which I Desire you would mark in neither of these Instances the Gold or Precious Stones be Analys'd into any of the Tria Prima but only Reduc'd to new Concretes And indeed there is a great Disparity betwixt the Operations of the several Agents whereby the Parts of a Body come to be Dissipated As if for Instance you dissolve the purer sort of Vitriol in common Water the Liquor will swallow up the Mineral and so Dissociate its Corpuscles that they will seem to make up but one Liquor with those of the water and yet each of these Corpuscles retains its Nature and Texture and remains a Vitriolate and Compounded Body But if the same Vitriol be exposed to a strong Fire it will then be divided not only as before into smaller parts but into Heterogeneous Substances each of the Vitriolate Corpuscles that remain'd entire in the water being it self upon the Destruction of its former Texture dissipated or divided into new Particles of differing Qualities But Instances more fitly applicable to this purpose I have already given you Wherefore to return to what I told you about the Destruction of Gold that Experiment Invites me to Represent to you that Though there were either Saline or Sulphureous or Terrestrial Portions of Matter whose parts were so small so firmly united together or of a figure so fit to make them cohere to one another as we see that in quicksilver broken into little Globes the Parts brought to touch one another do immediately re-imbody that neither the Fire nor the usual Agents employ'd by Chymists are pierceing enough to divide their Parts so as to destroy the Texture of the single Corpuscles yet it would not necessarily follow That such Permanent Bodies were Elementary since t is possible there may be Agents found in Nature some of whose parts may be of such a Size and Figure as to take better Hold of some parts of these seemingly Elementary Corpuscles than these parts do of the rest and Consequently may carry away such parts with them and so dissolve the Texture of the Corpuscle by pulling its parts asunder And if it be said that at least we may this way discover the Elementary Ingredients of Things by observing into what Substances these Corpuscles that were reputed pure are divided I answer that it is not necessary that such a Discovery should be practicable For if the Particles of the Dissolvent do take such firme hold of those of the Dissolved Body they must constitute together new Bodies as well as Destroy the Old and the strickt Union which according to this Hypothesis may well be suppos'd betwixt the Parts of the Emergent Body will make it as Little to be Expected that they should be pull'd asunder but by little Parts of matter that to Divide them Associate Themselves and stick extreamly close to those of them which they sever from their Former Adherents Besides that it is not impossible that a Corpuscle suppos'd to be Elementary may have its Nature changed without suffering a Divorce of its parts barely by a new Texture Effected by some powerfull Agent as I formerly told you the same portion of matter may easily by the Operation of the Fire be turn'd at pleasure into the form of a Brittle and Transparent or an Opacous and Malleable Body And indeed if you consider how farr the bare Change of Texture whether made by Art or Nature or rather by Nature with or without the assistance of man can go in producing such New Qualities in the same parcel of matter and how many inanimate Bodies such as are all the Chymical productions of the Fire we know are Denominated and Distinguish'd not so much by any
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
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
call Phlegme and which for ought I have yet seen or heard is not reducible into Mercury again and Consequently is more then a Disguise of it Now besides that divers Chymists will not allow Mercury to have any or at least any Considerable Quantity of either of the Ignoble Ingredients Earth and VVater Besides this I say the great Ponderousness of Quicksilver makes it very unlikely that it can have so much Water in it as may be thus obtain'd from it since Mercury weighs 12 or 14 times as much as water of the same Bulk Nay for a further Confirmation of this Argument I will add this Strange Relation that two Friends of mine the one a Physitian and the other a Mathematician and both of them Persons of unsuspected Credit have Solemnly assured me that after many Tryals they made to reduce Mercury into Water in Order to a Philosophicall Work upon Gold which yet by the way I know prov'd Unsuccesfull they did once by divers Cohobations reduce a pound of Quicksilver into almost a pound of Water and this without the Addition of any other Substance but only by pressing the Mercury by a Skillfully Manag'd Fire in purposely contriv'd Vessels But of these Experiments our Friend sayes Carneades pointing at the Register of this Dialogue will perhaps give You a more Particular Account then it is necessary for me to do Since what I have now said may sufficiently evince that the Fire may sometimes as well alter Bodies as divide them and by it we may obtain from a Mixt Body what was not Pre-existent in it And how are we sure that in no other Body what we call Phlegme is barely separated not Produc'd by the Action of the Fire Since so many other Mixt Bodies are of a much less Constant and more alterable Nature then Mercury by many Tricks it is wont to put upon Chymists and by the Experiments I told You of about an hour since Appears to be But because I shall ere long have Occasion to resume into Consideration the Power of the Fire to produce new Concretes I shall no longer insist on this Argument at present only I must mind You that if You will not dis-believe Helmonts Relations You must confess that the Tria Prima are neither ingenerable nor incorruptible Substances since by his Alkabest some of them may be produc'd of Bodies that were before of another Denomination and by the same powerfull Menstruum all of them may be reduc'd into insipid Water Here Carneades was about to pass on to his Third Consideration when Eleutherius being desirous to hear what he could say to clear his second General Consideration from being repugnant to what he seem'd to think the true Theory of Mistion prevented him by telling him I somewhat wonder Carneades that You who are in so many Points unsatisfied with the Peripatetick Opinion touching the Elements and Mixt Bodies should also seem averse to that Notion touching the manner of Mistion wherein the Chymists though perhaps without knowing that they do so agree with most of the Antient Philosophers that preceded Aristotle and that for Reasons so considerable that divers Modern Naturalists and Physitians in other things unfavourable enough to the Spagyrists do in this case side with them against the common Opinion of the Schools If you should ask me continues Eleutherius what Reasons I mean I should partly by the Writings of Sennertus and other learned Men and partly by my own Thoughts be supply'd with more then 't were at present proper for me to Insist largely on And therefore I shall mention only and that briefly three or four Of these I shall take the First from the state of the Controversie it self and the genuine Notion of Mistion which though much intricated by the Schoolmen I take in short to be this Aristotle at least as many of his Interpreters expound him and as indeed he Teaches in some places where he professedly Dissents from the Antients declares Mistion to be such a mutual Penetration and perfect Union of the mingl'd Elements that there is no Portion of the mixt Body how Minute soever which does not contain All and Every of the Four Elements or in which if you please all the Elements are not And I remember that he reprehends the Mistion taught by the Ancients as too sleight or gross for this Reason that Bodies mixt according to their Hypothesis though they appear so to humane Eyes would not appear such to the acute Eyes of a Lynx whose perfecter Sight would discerne the Elements if they were no otherwise mingled than as his Predecessors would have it to be but Blended not United whereas the Antients though they did not all Agree about what kind of Bodies were Mixt yet they did almost unanimously hold that in a compounded Bodie though the Miscibilia whether Elements Principles or whatever they pleas'd to call them were associated in such small Parts and with so much Exactness that there was no sensible Part of the Mass but seem'd to be of the same Nature with the rest and with the whole Yet as to the Atomes or other Insensible Parcels of Matter whereof each of the Miscibilia consisted they retain'd each of them its own Nature being but by Apposition or Juxta-Position united with the rest into one Bodie So that although by virtue of this composition the mixt Body did perhaps obtain Divers new Qualities yet still the Ingredients that Compounded it retaining their own Nature were by the Destruction of the Compositum separable from each other the minute Parts disingag'd from those of a differing Nature and associated with those of their own sort returning to be again Fire Earth or Water as they were before they chanc'd to be Ingredients of that Compositum This may be explain'd Continues Eleutherius by a piece of Cloath made of white and black threds interwoven wherein though the whole piece appear neither white nor black but of a resulting Colour that is gray yet each of the white and black threds that compose it remains what it was before as would appear if the threds were pull'd asunder and sorted each Colour by it self This pursues Eleutherius being as I understand it the State of the Controversie and the Aristotelians after their Master Commonly Defining that Mistion is Miscibilium alteratorum Unio that seems to comport much better with the Opinion of the Chymists then with that of their Adversaries since according to that as the newly mention'd Example declares there is but a Juxta-position of separable Corpuscles retaining each its own Nature whereas according to the Aristotelians when what they are pleas'd to call a mixt Body results from the Concourse of the Elements the Miscibilia cannot so properly be said to be Alter'd as Destroy'd since there is no Part in the mixt Body how small soever that can be call'd either Fir or Air or Water or Earth Nor indeed can I well understand how Bodies can be mingl'd other wayes then as I have
be admitted in such Cases as I have proposed there would not be an Union but a Destruction of mingled Bodies which seems all one as to say that of such Bodies there is no mistion at all I answer that though the Substances that are mingl'd remain only their Accidents are Destroy'd and though we may with tollerable Congruity call them Miscibilia because they are Distinct Bodies before they are put together however afterwards they are so Confounded that I should rather call them Concretions or Resulting Bodies than mixt ones and though perhaps some other and better Account may be propos'd upon which the name of mistion may remain yet if what I have said be thought Reason I shall nor wrangle about Words though I think it fitter to alter a Terme of Art then reject a new Truth because it suits not with it If it be also Objected that this Notion of mine concerning mixtion though it may be allow'd when Bodies already Compounded are put to be mingl'd yet it is not applicable to those mixtions that are immediately made of the Elements or Principles themselves I Answer in the first place that I here Consider the Nature of mixtion somewhat more Generally then the Chymists who yet cannot deny that there are oftentimes Mixtures and those very durable ones made of Bodies that are not Elementary And in the next place that though it may be probably pretended that in those Mixtures that are made immediately of the Bodies that are call'd Principles or Elements the mingl'd Ingredients may better retain their own Nature in the Compounded Mass and be more easily separated from thence yet besides that it may be doubted whether there be any such Primary Bodies I see not why the reason I alleadg'd of the destructibility of the Ingredients of Bodies in General may not sometimes be Applicable to Salt Sulphur or Mercury 'till it be shewn upon what account we are to believe them Priviledged And however if you please but to recall to mind to what purpose I told you at First I meant to speak of Mistion at this Time you will perhaps allow that what I have hither to Discoursed about it may not only give some Light to the Nature of it in general especially when I shall have an Opportunity to Declare to you my thoughts on that subject more fully but may on some Occasions also be Serviceable to me in the Insuing Part of this Discourse But to look back Now to that part of our Discourse whence this Excursion concerning Mistion has so long diverted us though we there Deduc'd from the differing Substances obtained from a Plant nourished only with Water and from some other things that it was not necessary that nature should alwaies compound a Body at first of all such differing bodies as the fire could afterwards make it afford yet this is not all that may be collected from those Experiments For from them there seems also Deducible something that Subverts an other Foundation of the Chymical Doctrine For since that as we have seen out of fair Water alone not only Spirit but Oyle and Salt and Earth may be Produced It will follow that Salt and Sulphur are not Primogeneal Bodies and principles since they are every Day made out of plain Water by the Texture which the Seed or Seminal principle of plants puts it into And this would not perhaps seem so strange if through pride or negligence We were not Wont to Overlook the Obvious and Familiar Workings of Nature For if We consider what slight Qualities they are that serve to denominate one of the Tria Prima We shall find that Nature do's frequently enough work as great Alterations in divers parcells of matter For to be readily dissoluble in water is enough to make the body that is so passe for a Salt And yet I see not why from a new shufling and Disposition of the Component Particles of a body it should be much harder for Nature to compose a body dissoluble in Water of a portion of Water that was not so before then of the Liquid substance of an Egg which will easily mix with VVater to produce by the bare warmth of a hatching Hen Membrans Feathrs Tendons and other parts that are not dissoluble in VVater as that Liquid Substance was Nor is the Hardness and Brittleness of Salt more difficult for Nature to introduce into such a yielding body as VVater then it is for her to make the Bones of a Chick out of the tender Substance of the Liquors of an Egg. But instead of prosecuting this consideration as I easily might I will proceed as soon as I have taken notice of an objection that lies in my Way For I easily foresee it will be alledged that the above mentioned Examples are all taken from Plants and Animals in whom the Matter is Fashioned by the Plastick power of the seed or something analogous thereunto Whereas the Fire do's not act like any of the Seminal Principles but destroyes them all when they come within its Reach But to this I shall need at present to make but this easy Answer That whether it be a Seminal Principle or any other which fashions that Matter after those various manners I have mentioned to You yet 't is Evident that either by the Plastick principle Alone or that and Heat Together or by some Other cause capable to context the matter it is yet possible that the matter may be Anew contriv'd into such Bodies And 't is only for the Possibility of this that I am now contending THE SCEPTICAL CHYMIST The Third Part. WHat I have hitherto Discours'd Eleutherius sayes his Friend to Him has I presume shew'n You that a Considering Man may very well question the Truth of those very Suppositions which Chymists as well as Peripatericks without proving take for granted and upon which Depends the Validity of the Inferences they draw from their Experiments Wherefore having dispach't that which though a Chymist Perhaps will not yet I do look upon as the most Important as well as Difficult part of my Task it will now be Seasonable for me to proceed to the Consideration of the Experiments themselves wherein they are wont so much to Triumph and Glory And these will the rather deserve a serious Examination because those that Alledge them are wont to do it with so much Confidence and Ostentation that they have hitherto impos'd upon almost all Persons without excepting Philosophers and Physitians themselves who have read their Books or heard them talk For some learned Men have been content rather to beleeve what they so boldly Affirm then be at the trouble and charge to try whether or no it be True Others again who have Curiosity enough to Examine the Truth of what is Averr'd want Skill and Opportunity to do what they Desire And the Generality even of Learned Men seeing the Chymists not contenting themselves with the Schools to amuse the World with empty words Actually Perform'd divers strange things
is a much surer mark the smell and some Operations manifest that there is brought over a Sulphur that makes part of the Liquor One thing more there is Eleutherius sayes Carneades which is so pertinent to my present purpose that though I have touch'd upon it before I cannot but on this occasion take notice of it And it is this That the Qualities or Accidents upon whose account Chymists are wont to call a portion of Matter by the name of Mercury or some other of their Principles are not such but that 't is possible as Great and therefore why not the like may be produc'd by such changes of Texture and other Alterations as the Fire may make in the small Parts of a Body I have already prov'd when I discours'd of the second General Consideration by what happens to plants nourish'd only with fair water and Eggs hatch'd into Chickens that by changing the disposition of the component parts of a Body Nature is able to effect as great Changes in a parcell of Matter reputed similar as those requisite to Denominate one of the Tria Prima And though Helmont do somewhere wittily call the Fire the Destructor and the Artificial Death of Things And although another Eminent Chymist and Physitian be pleas'd to build upon this That Fire can never generate any thing but Fire Yet You will I doubt not be of another mind If You consider how many new sorts of mixt Bodies Chymists themselves have produc'd by means of the Fire And particularly if You consider how that Noble and Permanent Body Glass is not only manifestly produc'd by the violent action of the Fire but has never for ought we know been produc'd any other way And indeed it seems but an inconsiderate Assertion of some Helmontians that every sort of Body of a Peculiar Denomination must be produc'd by some Seminal power as I think I could evince if I thought it so necessary as it is for me to hasten to what I have further to discourse Nor need it much move us that there are some who look upon whatsoever the Fire is employ'd to produce not as upon Natural but Artificial Bodies For there is not alwaies such a difference as many imagine betwixt the one and the other Nor is it so easy as they think clearly to assigne that which Properly Constantly and Sufficiently Discriminates them But not to engage my self in so nice a Disquisition it may now suffice to observe that a thing is commonly termed Artificial when a parcel of matter is by the Artificers hand or Tools or both brought to such a shape or Form as he Design'd before-hand in his Mind Whereas in many of the Chymical Productions the effect would be produc'd whether the Artificer intended it or no and is oftentimes very much other then he Intended or Look't for and the Instruments employ'd are not Tools Artificially fashion'd and shaped like those of Tradesmen for this or that particular Work but for the most part Agents of Nature's own providing and whose chief Powers of Operation they receive from their own Nature or Texture not the Artificer And indeed the Fire is as well a Natural Agent as Seed And the Chymist that imployes it does but apply Natural Agents and Patients who being thus brought together and acting according to their respective Natures performe the worke themselves as Apples Plums or other fruit are natural Productions though the Gardiner bring and fasten together the Sciens of the Stock and both Water and do perhaps divers other wayes Contribute to its bearing fruit But to proceed to what I was going to say You may observe with me Eleutherius that as I told You once before Qualities sleight enough may serve to Denominate a Chymical Principle For when they anatomize a compound Body by the Fire if they get a Substance inflamable and that will not mingle with Water that they presently call Sulphur what is sapid and Dissoluble in Water that must passe for Salt Whatsoever is fix'd and indissoluble in Water that they name Earth And I was going to add that whatsoever Volatile substance they know not what to make of not to say whatsoever they please that they call Mercury But that these Qualities may either be produc'd otherwise then by such as they call Seminal Agents or may belong to bodies of a compounded Nature may be shewn among other Instances in Glass made of ashes where the exceeding strongly-tasted Alcalizate Salt joyning with the Earth becomes insipid and with it constitutes a Body which though also dry fixt and indissoluble in Water is yet manifestly a mixt Body and made so by the Fire it self And I remmember to our present purpose that Helmont amongst other Medicines that he commends has a short processe wherein though the Directions for Practice are but obscurely intimated yet I have some reason not to Dis-believe the Process without affirming or denying any thing about the vertues of the remedy to be made by it Helment pag. 412. Quando sayes he oleum cinnamomi c. suo sali alkali miscetur absque omni aqua trium mensium artificiosa occultaque circulatione totum in salem volatilem commutatum est vere essentiam sui simplicis in nobis exprimit usque in prima nostri constitutivasese ingerit A not unlike Processe he delivers in another place from whence if we suppose him to say true I may argue that since by the Fire there may be produc'd a substance that is as well Saline and volatile as the Salt of Harts-horn blood c. which pass for Elementary and since that this Volatile Salt is really compounded of a Chymical Oyle and a fixt Salt the one made Volatile by the Other and both associated by the fire it may well be suspected that other Substances emerging upon the Dissipation of Bodies by the Fire may be new sorts of Mixts and consist of Substances of differing natures and particularly I have sometimes suspected that since the Volatile Salts of Blood Harts-horn c. are figitive and endow'd with an exceeding strong smell either that Chymists do Erroneously ascribe all odours to sulphurs or that such Salts consist of some oyly parts well incorporated with the Saline ones And the like conjecture I have also made concerning Spirit of Vinager which though the Chymists think one of the Principles of that Body and though being an Acid Spirit it seems to be much less of kin then Volatile Salts to sulphurs yet not to mention its piercing smell which I know not with what congruity the Chymist will deduce from Salt I wonder they have not taken notice of what their own Tyrocinium Chymicum teach us concerning the Destillation of Saccharum Saturni out of which Beguinus assures Us Tyroc Chym. L. 1. C. 4. that he distill'd besides a very fine spirit no lesse then two Oyles the one blood-red and ponderous but the other swimming upon the top of the Spirit and of a yellow colour of which
he sayes that he kept then some by him to verify what he delivers And though I remember not that I have had two distinct Oyles from Sugar of Lead yet that it will though distill'd without addition yield some Oyle disagrees not with my Experience I know the Chymists will be apt to pretend that these Oyls are but the volatiliz'd sulphur of the lead and will perhaps argue it from what Beguinus relates that when the Distillation is ended you 'l find a Caput Mortuum extreamly black and as he speaks nullius momenti as if the Body or at least the chief part of the Metal it self were by the distillation carried over the Helme But since you know as well as I that Saccharum Saturni is a kind of Magistery made only by calcining of Lead per se dissolving it in distill'd Vinager and crystalizing the solution if I had leasure to tell You how Differing a thing I did upon examination find the Caput Mortuum so sleighted by Beguinus to be from what he represents it I believe you would think the conjecture propos'd less probable then one or other of these three either that this Oyle did formerly concur to constitute the Spirit of Vinager and so that what passes for a Chymical Principle may yet be further resoluble into distinct substances or that some parts of the Spirit together with some parts of the Lead may constitute a Chymical Oyle which therefore though it pass for Homogeneous may be a very compounded Body or at least that by the action of the Distill'd Vinager and the Saturnine Calx one upon another part of the Liquor may be so alter'd as to be transmuted from an Acid Spirit into an Oyle And though the truth of either of the two former conjectures would make the example I have reflected on more pertinent to my present argument yet you 'l easily discern the Third and last Conjecture cannot be unserviceable to confirm some other passages of my discourse To return then to what I was saying just before I mention'd Helmont's Experiment I shall subjoyne That Chymists must confess also that in the perfectly Dephlegm'd spirit of Wine or other Fermented Liquors that which they call the Sulphur of the Concrete loses by the Fermentation the Property of Oyle which the Chymists likewise take to be the true Sulphur of the Mixt of being unminglable with the Water Ostendi alias quomodo lib. una aquae vitae combibita in sale Tartari siccato vix fiat semuncia salis caeterum totum corpus fiat aqua Elementalis Helmont in Aura vitali And if You will credit Helmont all of the purest Spirit of Wine may barely by the help of pure Salt of Tartar which is but the fixed Salt of Wine be resolv'd or Transmuted into scarce half an ounce of Salt and as much Elementary Water as amounts to the remaining part of the mention'd weight And it may as I think I formerly also noted be doubted whether that Fixt and Alcalizate Salt which is so unanimously agreed on to be the Saline Principle of incinerated Bodies be not as 't is Alcalizate a Production of the Fire For though the tast of Tartar for Example seem to argue that it contains a Salt before it be burn'd yet that Salt being very Acid is of a quite Differing Tast from the Lixiviate Salt of Calcin'd Tartar And though it be not truly Objected against the Chymists that they obtain all Salts they make by reducing the Body they work on into Ashes with Violent Fires since Hartshorn Amber Blood and divers other Mixts yield a copious Salt before they be burn'd to Ashes yet this Volatile Salt Differs much as we shall see anon from the Fixt Alcalizate Salt I speak of which for ought I remember is not producible by any known Way without Incineration 'T is not unknown to Chymists that Quicksilver may be Precipitated without Addition into a dry Powder that remains so in Water And some eminent Spagyrists and even Raimund Lully himself teach that meerly by the Fire Quicksilver may in convenient Vessels be reduc'd at least in great part into a thin Liquor like Water and minglable with it So that by the bare Action of the Fire 't is possible that the parts of a mixt Body should be so dispos'd after new and differing manners that it may be sometimes of one consistence sometimes of another And may in one State be dispos'd to be mingl'd with Water and in another not I could also shew you that Bodies from which apart Chymists cannot obtain any thing that is Combustible may by being associated together and by the help of the Fire afford an inflamable Substance And that on the other side 't is possible for a Body to be inflamable from which it would very much puzzle any ordinary Chymist and perhaps any other to separate an inflamable Principle or Ingredient Wherefore since the Principles of Chymists may receive their Denominations from Qualities which it often exceeds not the power of Art nor alwayes that of the Fire to produce And since such Qualities may be found in Bodies that differ so much in other Qualities from one another that they need not be allow'd to agree in that pure and simple Nature which Principles to be so indeed must have it may justly be suspected that many Productions of the Fire that are shew'd us by Chymists as the Principles of the Concrete that afforded them may be but a new kind of Mixts And to annex on this Occasion to these arguments taken from the Nature of the thing one of those which Logicians call ad Hominem I shall desire You to take Notice that though Paracelsus Himself and some that are so mistaken as to think he could not be so have ventur'd to teach that not only the bodies here below but the Elements themselves and all the other Parts of the Universe are compos'd of Salt Sulphur and Mercury yet the learned Sennertus and all the more wary Chymists have rejected that conceit and do many of them confess that the Tria Prima are each of them made up of the four Elements and others of them make Earth and Water concur with Salt Sulphur and Mercury to the Constitution of Mixt bodies So that one sort of these Spagyrists notwithstanding the specious Titles they give to the productions of the Fire do in effect grant what I contend for And of the other sort I may well demand to what Kind of Bodies the Phlegme and dead Earth to be met with in Chymical Resolutions are to be referr'd For either they must say with Paracelsus but against their own Concessions as well as against Experience that these are also compos'd of the Tria Prima whereof they cannot separate any one from either of them or else they must confess that two of the vastest Bodies here below Earth and Water are neither of them compos'd of the Tria Prima and that consequently those three are not the Universal and Adequate
Principles and the four Elements I shall content my self to inferr from the alledg'd passage that if his doctrine be not consistent with that Part of mine which it is brought to countenance it is very difficult to know what his opinion concerning salt sulphur and mercury was and that consequently we had reason about the beginning of our conferences to decline taking upon us either to examine or oppose it I know not whether I should on this occasion add that those very bodies the Chymists call Phlegme and Earth do yet recede from an Elementary simplicity That common Earth and Water frequently do so notwithstanding the received contrary opinion is not deny'd by the more wary of the moderne Peripateticks themselves and certainly most Earths are much lesse simple bodies then is commonly imagined even by Chymists who do not so consideratly to prescribe and employ Earths Promiscuously in those distillations that require the mixture of some caput mortuum to hinder the flowing together of the matter and to retain its grosser parts For I have found some Earths to yield by distillation a Liquor very far from being inodorous or insipid and 't is a known observation that most kinds of fat Earth kept cover'd from the rain and hindred from spending themselves in the production of vegetables will in time become impregnated with Salt-Petre But I must remember that the Water and Earths I ought here to speak of are such as are separated from mixt Bodies by the fire and therefore to restrain my Discourse to such I shall tell you That we see the Phlegme of Vitriol for instance is a very effectual remedie against burnes and I know a very Famous and experienc'd Physitian whose unsuspected secret himself confess'd to me it is for the discussing of hard and Obstinate Tumours The Phlegme of Vinager though drawn exceeding leasurly in a digesting Furnace I have purposely made tryall of and sometimes found it able to draw though slowly a saccharine sweetness out of Lead and as I remember by long Digestion I dissolv'd Corpals in it The Phlegme of the sugar of Saturne is said to have very peculiar properties Divers Eminent Chymists teach that it will dissolve Pearls which being precipitated by the spirit of the same concrete are thereby as they say rendred volatile which has been confirmed to me upon his own observation by a person of great veracity The Phlegme of Wine and indeed divers other Liquors that are indiscriminately condemnd to be cast away as phlegm are endow'd with qualities that make them differ both from meer water and from each other and whereas the Chymists are pleas'd to call the caput mortuum of what they have distill'd after they have by affusion of water drawn away its salt terra damnata or Earth it may be doubted whether or no those earths are all of them perfectly alike and it is scarce to be doubted but that there are some of them which remain yet unreduc'd to an Elementary nature The ashes of wood depriv'd of all the salt and bone-Ashes or calcin'd Harts-horn which Refiners choose to make Tests of as freest from Salt seem unlike and he that shall compare either of these insipid ashes to Lime and much more to the calx of Talk though by the affusion of water they be exquisitely dulcify'd will perhaps see cause to think them things of a somewhat differing nature And it is evident in Colcothar that the exactest calcination follow'd by an exquisite dulcification does not alwaies reduce the remaining body into elementary earth for after the salt or Vitriol if the Calcination have been too faint is drawn out of the Colcothar the residue is not earth but a mixt body rich in Medical vertues as experience has inform'd me and which Angelus Sala affirmes to be partly reducible into malleable Copper which I judge very probable for though when I was making Experiments upon Colcothar I was destitute of a Furnace capable of giving a heat intense Enough to bring such a Calx to Fusion yet having conjectur'd that if Colcothar abounded with that Metal Aqua Fortis would find it out there I put some dulcifi'd Colcothar into that Menstruum and found the Liquor according to my Expectation presently Colour'd as Highly as if it had been an Ordinary Solution of Copper THE SCEPTICAL CHYMIST The Fifth Part. HEre Carneades making a pause I must not deny sayes his Friend to him that I think You have sufficiently prov'd that these distinct Substances which Chymists are wont to obtain from Mixt Bodies by their Vulgar Destillation are not pure and simple enough to deserve in Rigour of speaking the Name of Elements or Principles But I suppose You have heard that there are some Modern Spagyrists who give out that they can by further and more Skilfull Purifications so reduce the separated Ingredients of Mixt Bodies to an Elementary simplicity That the Oyles for Instance extracted from all Mixts shall as perfectly resemble one another as the Drops of Water do If you remember replies Carneades that at the Beginning of our Conference with Philoponus I declar'd to him before the rest of the Company that I would not engage my self at present to do any more then examine the usual proofs alledg'd by Chymists for the Vulgar doctrine of their three Hypostatical Principles You will easily perceive that I am not oblig'd to make answer to what you newly propos'd and that it rather grants then disproves what I have been contending for Since by pretending to make so great a change in the reputed Principles that Destillation affords the common Spagyrists 't is plainly enough presuppos'd that before such Artificial Depurations be made the Substances to be made more simple were not yet simple enough to be look'd upon as Elementary Wherefore in case the Artists you speak of could perform what they give out they can yet I should not need to be asham'd of having question'd the Vulgar Opinion touching the tria Prima And as to the thing it self I shall freely acknowledge to you that I love not to be forward in determining things to be impossible till I know and have consider'd the means by which they are propos'd to be effected And therefore I shall not peremptorily deny either the possibility of what these Artists promise or my Assent to any just Inference however destructive to my Conjectures that may be drawn from their performances But give me leave to tell you withall that because such promises are wont as Experience has more then once inform'd me to be much more easily made then made good by Chymists I must withhold my Beliefe from their assertions till their Experiments exact it and must not be so easie as to expect before hand an unlikely thing upon no stronger Inducements then are yet given me Besides that I have not yet found by what I have heard of these Artists that though they pretend to bring the several Substances into which the Fire has divided the Concrete to an
't is by reason of the Earth that abounds in it but since according to them it must consist also of air and partly of Fire which they affirm to be light Elements how comes it that it should be so much heavier then Earth of the same bulk though to fill up the porosities and other Cavities it be made up into a mass or paste with Water which it self they allow to be a heavy Element But to returne to our Spagyrists we see that Chymical Oyles and fixt Salts though never so exquisitely purify'd and freed from terrestrial parts do yet remain ponderous enough And Experience has inform'd me that a pound for instance of some of the heaviest Woods as Guajacum that will sink in Water being burnt to Ashes will yield a much less weight of them whereof I found but a small part to be Alcalyzate then much lighter Vegetables As also that the black Charcoal of it will not sink as did the wood but swim which argues that the Differing Gravity of Bodies proceeds chiefly from their particular Texture as is manifest in Gold the closest and Compactest of Bodies which is many times heavier then we can possibly make any parcell of Earth of the same Bulk I will not examine what may be argu'd touching the Gravity or Quality Analagous thereunto of even Celestial bodies from the motion of the spots about the Sun d from the appearing equality of the suppos'd Seas in the Moon nor consider how little those Phaemonea would agree with what Sennertus presumes concerning Gravity But further to invalidate his supposition I shall demand upon what Chymical Principle Fluidity depends And yet Fluidity is two or three perhaps excepted the most diffused quality of the universe and far more General then almost any other of those that are to be met with in any of the Chymicall Principles or Aristotelian Elements since not only the Air but that vast expansion we call Heaven in comparison of which our Terrestrial Globe supposing it were all Solid is but a point and perhaps to the Sun and the fixt Stars are fluid bodies I demand also from which of the Chymical Principles Motion flowes which yet is an affection of matter much more General then any that can be deduc'd from any of the three Chymical Principles I might ask the like Question concerning Light which is not only to be found in the Kindl'd Sulphur of mixt Bodis but not to mention those sorts of rotten Woods and rotten Fish that shine in the Dark in the tails of living Glow-wormes and in the Vast bodies of the Sun and Stars I would gladly also know in which of the three Principles the Quality we call Sound resides as in its proper Subject since either Oyl falling upon Oyle or Spirit upon Spirit or Salt upon Salt in a great quantity and from a considerable height will make a noise or if you please create a sound and that the objection may reach the Aristotelians so will also water upon water and Earth upon Earth And I could name other qualities to be met within divers bodies of which I suppose my Adversaries will not in haste assign any Subject upon whose Account it must needs be that the quality belongs to all the other several bodies And before I proceed any further I must here invite you to compare the supposition we are examining with some other of the Chymical Tenents For first they do in effect teach that more then one quality may belong to and be deduc'd from one Principle For they ascribe to Salt Tasts and the power of Coagulation to sulphur as well Odours as inflamableness And some of them ascribe to Mercury Colours as all of them do effumability as they speak And on the other side it is evident that Volatility belongs in common to all the three Principles and to Water too For 't is manifest that Chymical Oyles are Volatile That also divers Salts Emerging upon the Analysis of many Concretes are very Volatile is plain from the figitiveness of Salt of Harts-horne flesh c. ascending in the Distillation of those bodies How easily water may be made to ascend in Vapours there is scarce any body that has not observ'd And as for what they call the Mercuriall Principle of bodies that is so apt to be rais'd in the form of Steam that Paracelsus and others define it by that aptness to fly up so that to draw that inference by the way it seems not that Chymists have been accurate in their Doctrine of qualities and their respective Principles since they both derive several qualities from the same Principle and must ascribe the same quality to almost all their Principles and other bodies besides And thus much for the first thing taken for granted without sufficient proof by your Sennertus And to add that upon the Bye continues Carneades we may hence learn what to judge of the way of Argumentation which that fierce Champion of the Aristotelians against the Chymists In Thessalo redivivo Cap. 10. pag. 73. 74. Anthonius Guntherus Billichius employes where he pretends to prove against Beguinus that not only the four Elements do immediately concur to Constitute every mixt body and are both present in it and obtainable from it upon its Dissolution but that in the Tria Prima themselves whereinto Chymists are wont to resolve mixt Bodies each of them clearly discovers it self to consist of four Elements The Ratiocination it self pursues Carneades being somewhat unusual I did the other Day Transcribe it and sayes He pulling a Paper out of his Pocket it is this Ordiamur cum Beguino a ligno viridi quod si concremetur videbis in sudore Aquam in fumo Aerem in flamma Prunis Ignem Terram in cineribus Quod si Beguino placuerit ex eo colligere humidum aquosum cohibere humidum oleaginosum extrahere ex cineribus salem Ego ipsi in unoquoque horum seorsim quatuor Elementa ad oculum demonstrabo eodem artificio quo in ligno viridi ea demonstravi Humorem aquosum admovebo Igni Ipse Aquam Ebullire videbit in Vapore Aerem conspiciet Ignem sentiet in aestu plus minus Terrae in sedimento apparebit Humor porro Oleaginosus aquam humiditate fluiditate per se accensus vero Ignem flamma prodit fumo Aerem fuligine nidore amurca terram Salem denique ipse Beguinus siccum vocat Terrestrem qui tamen nec fusus Aquam nec caustica vi ignem celare potest ignis vero Violentia in halitus versus nec ab Aere se alienum esse demonstrat Idem de Lacte de Ovis desemine Lini de Garyophyllis de Nitro de sale Marino denique de Antimonio quod fuit de Ligno viridi Judicium eadem de illorum partibus quas Beguinus adducit sententia quae de viridis ligni humore aquoso quae de liquore ejusdem oleoso quae de sale fuit This bold Discourse resumes Carneades putting up
You to take notice with me that when our Authour though a Learned Man and one that pretends skill enough in Chymistry to reforme the whole Art comes to make good his confident Undertaking to give us an occular Demonstration of the immediate Presence of the four Elements in the resolution of Green Wood He is fain to say things that agree very little with one another For about the beginning of that passage of His lately recited to you he makes the sweat as he calls it of the green Wood to be Water the smoke Aire the shining Matter Fire and the Ashes Earth whereas a few lines after he will in each of these nay as I just now noted in one Distinct Part of the Ashes shew the four Elements So that either the former Analysis must be incompetent to prove that Number of Elements since by it the burnt Concrete is not reduc'd into Elementary Bodies but into such as are yet each of them compounded of the four Elements or else these Qualities from which he endeavours to deduce the presence of all the Elements in the fixt salt and each of the other separated substances will be but a precarious way of probation especially if you consider that the extracted Alcali of Wood being for ought appears at least as similar a Body as any that the Peripateticks can shew us if its differing Qualities must argue the presence of Distinct Elements it will scarce be possible for them by any way they know of employing the fire upon a Body to shew that any Body is a Portion of a true Element And this recals to my mind that I am now but in an occasional Excussion which aiming only to shew that the Peripateticks as well as the Chymists take in our present Controversie something for granted which they ought to prove I shall returne to my exceptions where I ended the first of them and further tell you that neither is that the only precarious thing that I take notice of in Sennertus his Argumentation for when he inferrs that because the Qualities he Mentions as Colours Smels and the like belong not to the Elements they therefore must to the Chymical Principles he takes that for granted which will not in haste be prov'd as I might here manifest but that I may be and by have a fitter opportunity to take notice of it And thus much at present may suffice to have Discours'd against the Supposition that almost every Quality must have some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they speak some Native receptacle wherein as in its proper Subject of in hesion it peculiarly resides and on whose account that quality belongs to the other Bodies Wherein it is to be met with Now this Fundamental supposition being once Destroy'd whatsoever is built upon it must fall to ruine of it self But I consider further that Chymists are for ought I have found far from being able to explicate by any of the Tria Prima those qualities which they pretend to belong primarily unto it and in mixt Bodies to Deduce from it T is true indeed that such qualities are not explicable by the four Elements but it will not therefore follow that they are so by the three hermetical Principles and this is it that seems to have deceiv'd the Chymists and is indeed a very common mistake amongst most Disputants who argue as if there could be but two Opinions concerning the Difficulty about which they contend and consequently they inferr that if their Adversaries Opinion be Erroneous Their's must needs be the Truth whereas many questions and especially in matters Physiological may admit of so many Differing Hypotheses that 't will be very inconsiderate and fallacious to conclude except where the Opinions are precisely Contradictory the Truth of one from the falsity of another And in our particular case 't is no way necessary that the Properties of mixt Bodies must be explicable either by the Hermetical or the Aristotelian Hypothesis there being divers other and more plausible wayes of explaining them and especially that which deduces qualities from the motion figure and contrivance of the small parts of Bodies as I think might be shewn if the attempt were as seasonable as I fear it would be Tedious I will allow then that the Chymists do not causelessly accuse the Doctrine of the four elements of incompetency to explain the Properties of Compound bodies And for this Rejection of a Vulgar Error they ought not to be deny'd what praise men may deserve for exploding a Doctrine whose Imperfections are so conspicuous that men needed but not to shut their Eyes to discover them But I am mistaken if our Hermetical Philosophers Themselves need not as well as the Peripateticks have Recourse to more Fruitfull and Comprehensive Principles then the trial Prima to make out the Properties of the Bodies they converse with Not to accumulate Examples to this purpose because I hope for a fitter opportunity to prosecute this Subject let us at present only point at Colour that you may guess by what they say of so obvious and familiar a Quality how little Instruction we are to expect from the Tria Prima in those more abstruse ones which they with the Aristotelians stile Occult. For about Colours neither do they at all agree among themselves nor have I met with any one of which of the three Perswasions soever that does intelligibly explicate Them The Vulgar Chymists are wont to ascribe Colours to Mercury De Cons. dissen cap. 11. pag. 186. Paracelsus in divers places attributes them to Salt and Sennertus having recited their differing Opinions Dissents from both and referrs Colours rather unto Sulphur But how Colours do nay how they may arise from either of these Principles I think you will scarce say that any has yet intelligibly explicated And if Mr. Boyle will allow me to shew you the Experiments which he has collected about Colours you will I doubt not confess that bodies exhibite colours not upon the Account of the Predominancy of this or that Principle in them but upon that of their Texture and especially the Disposition of their superficial parts whereby the Light rebounding thence to the Eye is so modifi'd as by differing Impressions variously to affect the Organs of Sight I might here take notice of the pleasing variety of Colours exhibited by the Triangular glass as 't is wont to be call'd and demand what addition or decrement of either Salt Sulphur or Mercury befalls the Body of the Glass by being Prismatically figur'd and yet 't is known that without that shape it would not affor'd those colours as it does But because it may be objected that these are not real but apparent Colours that I may not lose time in examing the Distinction I will alledge against the Chymists a couple of examples of Real and Permanent Colours Drawn from Metalline Bodies and represent that without the addition of any extraneous body Quicksilver may by the Fire alone and that in glass
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
appearing in the Stone upon a Stroak given near the wall an Invitation Given him to Work his Way through which as soon as he had done his Eyes were saluted by a mighty stone or Lump which stood in the middle of the Cleft that had a hollow place behind it upright and in shew like an armed-man but consisted of pure fine Silver having no Vein or Ore by it or any other Additament but stood there free having only underfoot something like a burnt matter and yet this one Lump held in Weight above a 1000 marks which according to the Dutch Account makes 500 pound weight of fine silver From which and other Circumstances my Author gathers That by the warmth of the place the Noble Metalline Spirits Sulphureous and Mercurial were carri'd from the neighbouring Galleries or Vaults through other smaller Cracks and Clefts into that Cavity and there collected as in a close Chamber or Cellar whereinto when they were gotten they did in process of time settle into the forementioned precious mass of Metal The other Germane Relation is of That great Traveller and Laborious Chymist Johannes not Georgus Agricola who in his notes upon what Poppius has written of Antimony Relates that when he was among the Hungarian Mines in the deep Groves he observ'd that there would often arise in them a warm Steam not of that malignant sort which the Germains call Shwadt which sayes he is a meer poyson and often suffocates the Diggers which fasten'd it self to the Walls and that coming again to review it after a couple of dayes he discern'd that it was all very fast and glistering whereupon having collected it and Distill'd it per Retortam he obtain'd from it a fine Spirit adding that the Mine-Men inform'd him that this Steam or Damp of the English Mine retaining the dutch Term would at last have become a Metal as Gold or Silver I referr sayes Carneades to another Occasion the Use that may be made of these Narratives towards the explicating the Nature of Metalls and that of Fixtness Malleableness and some other Qualities conspicuous in them And in the mean time this I may at present deduce from these Observations That 't is not very probable that whensoever a Mineral or even a Metall is to be Generated in the Bowels of the Earth Nature needs to have at hand both Salt and Sulphur and Mercury to Compound it of for not to urge that the two last Relations seem less to favour the Chymists than Aristotle who would have Metals Generated of certain Halitus or steams the foremention'd Observations together make it seem more Likely that the mineral Earths or those Metalline steams wherewith probably such Earths are plentifully imbu'd do contain in them some seminal Rudiment or some thing Equivalent thereunto by whose plastick power the rest of the matter though perhaps Terrestrial and heavy is in Tract of time fashion'd into this or That metalline Ore almost as I formerly noted that fair water was by the seminal Principle of Mint Pompions and other Vegetables contriv'd into Bodies answerable to such Seeds And that such Alterations of Terrestrial matter are not impossible seems evident from that notable Practice of the Boylers of Salt-Petre who unanimously observe as well here in England as in other Countries That if an Earth pregnant with Nitre be depriv'd by the affusion of water of all its true and dissoluble Salt yet the Earth will after some years yield them Salt-Petre again For which reason some of the eminent and skillfullest of them keep it in heaps as a perpetual Mine of Salt Petre whence it may appear that the Seminal Principle of Nitre latent in the Earth does by degrees Transforme the neighbouring matter into a Nitrous Body for though I deny that some Volatile Nitre may by such Earths be attracted as they speak out of the Air yet that the innermost parts of such great heaps that lye so remote from the Air should borrow from it all the Nitre they abound with is not probable for other reasons besides the remoteness of the Air though I have not the Leasure to mention them And I remember that a personof Great Credit and well acquainted with the wayes of making Vitriol affirm'd to me that he had observ'd that a kind of mineral which abounds in that Salt being kept within Doors and not expos'd as is usual to the free Air and Rains did of it self in no very long time turn into Vitriol not only in the outward or superficial but even in the internal and most Central parts And I also remember that I met with a certain kind of Merkasite that lay together in great Quantities under ground which did even in my chamber in so few hours begin of it self to turne into Vitriol that we need not distrust the newly recited narrative But to return to what I was saying of Nitre as Nature made this Salt-Petre out of the once almost and inodorous Earth it was bred in and did not find a very stinking and corrosive Acid Liquor and a sharp Alcalyzate Salt to compound it of though these be the Bodies into which the Fire dissolves it so it were not necessary that Nature should make up all Metals and other Minerals of Pre-existent Salt and Sulphur and Mereury though such Bodies might by Fire be obtained from it Which one consideration duly weigh'd is very considerable in the present controversy And to this agree well the Relations of our two German Chymists for besides that it cannot be convincingly prov'd it is not so much as likely that so languid and moderate a heat as that within the Mines should carry up to so great a heat though in the forme of fumes Salt Sulphur and Mercury since we find in our Distillations that it requires a considerable Degree of Fire to raise so much as to the height of one foot not only Salt but even Mercury it self in close Vessels And if it be objected that it seems by the stink that is sometimes observ'd when Lightening falls down here below that sulphureous steams may ascend very high without any extraordinary Degree of heat It may be answer'd among other things that the Sulphur of Silver is by Chymists said to be a fixt Sulphur though not altogether so well Digested as that of Gold But proceeds Carneades If it had not been to afford You some hints concerning the Origine of Metals I need not have deduc'd any thing from these Observations It not being necessary to the Validity of my Argument that my Deductions from them should be irrefragable because my Adversaries the Aristotelians and Vulgar Chymists do not I presume know any better then I a priori of what ingredients Nature compounds Metals and Minerals For their Argument to prove that those Bodies are made up of such Principles is drawn a posteriori I mean from this that upon the Analysis of Mineral bodies they are resolv'd into those differing substances That we may therefore examine this
Argument Let us proceed to consider what can be alledg'd in behalf of the E. lements from the Resolutions of Bodies by the fire which you remember was the second Tophick whence I told you the Arguments of my Adversaries were desum'd And that I may first dispatch what I have to say concerning Minerals I will begin the remaining part of my discourse with considering how the fire divides them And first I have partly noted above that though Chymists pretend from some to draw salt from others running Mercury and from others a Sulphur Yet they have not hitherto taught us by any way in us among them to separate any one principle whether Salt Sulphur or Mercury from all sorts of Minerals without exception And thence I may be allow'd to conclude that there is not any of the Elements that is an Ingredient of all Bodies since there are some of which it is not so In the next place supposing that either Sulphur or Mercury were obtainable from all sorts of Minerals Yet still this Sulphur or Mercury would be but a compounded not an Elementary body as I told you already on another occasion And certainly he that takes notice of the wonderful Operations of Quicksilver whether it be common or drawn from Mineral Bodies can scarce be so inconsiderate as to think it of the very same nature with that immature and fugitive substance which in Vegetables and Animals Chymists have been pleas'd to call their Mercury So that when Mercury is got by the help of the fire out of a metal or other Mineral Body if we will not suppose that it was not pre-existent in it but produc'd by the action of the fire upon the Concrete we may at least suppose this Quicksilver to have been a perfect Body of its own kind though perhaps lesse heterogeneous then more secundary mixts which happen'd to be mingl'd per minima and coagulated with the other substances whereof the Metal or Mineral consisted As may be exemplyfied partly by Native Vermillion wherein the Quicksilver and Sulphur being exquisitely blended both with one another and that other course Mineral stuff what ever it be that harbours them make up a red body differing enough from both and yet from which part of the Quicksilver and of the Sulphur may be easily enough obtain'd Partly by those Mines wherein nature has so curiously incorporated Silver with Lead that 't is extreamly difficult and yet possible to separate the former out of the Latter And partly too by native Vitriol wherein the Metalline Corpuscles are by skill and industry separable from the saline ones though they be so con-coagulated with them that the whole Concrete is reckon'd among Salts And here I further observe that I never could see any Earth or Water properly so call'd separated from either Gold or Silver to name now no other Metalline Bodies and therefore to retort the argument upon my Adversaries I may conclude that since there are some bodies in which for ought appears there is neither Earth nor Water I may be allow'd to conclude that neither of those two is an Universal Ingredient of all those Bodies that are counted perfectly mixt which I desire you would remember against Anon. It may indeed be objected that the reason why from Gold or Silver we cannot separate any moisture is because that when it is melted out of the Oare the vehement Fire requisite to its Fusion forc'd away all the aqueous and fugitive moisture and the like fire may do from the materials of Glass To which I shall Answer that I Remember I read not long since in the Learned Josephus Acosta who relates it upon his own observation that in America Acesta Natural and Moral history of the Indies L. 3. c. 5 P. 212. where he long lived there is a kind of Silver which the Indians call Papas and sometimes sayes he they find pieces very fine and pure like to small round roots the which is rare in that metal but usuall in Gold Concerning which metal he tells us that besides this they find some which they call Gold in grains which he tells us are small morsels of Gold that they find whole without mixture of any other metal which hath no need of melting or Refining in the fire I remember that a very skilful and credible person affirmed to me that being in the Hungarian mines he had the good fortune to see a mineral that was there digg'd up wherein pieces of Gold of the length and also almost of the bigness of a humane Finger grew in the Oar as if they had been parts and Branches of Trees And I have my self seen a Lump of whitish Mineral that was brought as a Rarity to a Great and knowing Prince wherein there grew here and there in the Stone which looked like a kind of sparr divers little Lumps of fine Gold for such I was assured that Tryal had manifested it to be some of them Seeming to be about the Bigness of pease But that is nothing to what our Acosta subjoynes which is indeed very memorable namely that of the morsels of Native and pure Gold which we lately heard him mentioning he had now and then seen some that weighed many pounds to which I shall add that I my self have seen a Lump of Oar not long since digged up See Acosla in the fore-cited Place and the passage of Pliny quoted by him in whose stony part there grew almost like Trees divers parcels though not of Gold yet of what perhaps Mineralists will more wonder at another Metal which seemed to be very pure or unmixt with any Heterogeneous Substances and were some of them as big as my Finger if not bigger But upon Observations of this kind though perhaps I could yet I must not at present dwell any longer To proceed Therefore now sayes Carneades to the Consideration of the Analysis of Vegetables although my Tryals give me no cause to doubt but that out of most of them five differing Substances may be obtain'd by the fire yet I think it will not be so easily Demonstrated that these deserve to be call'd Elements in the Notion above explain'd And before I descend to particulars I shall repeat and premise this General Consideration that these differing substances that are call'd Elements or Principles differ not from each other as Metals Plants and Animals or as such Creatures as are immediately produc'd each by its peculiar Seed and Constitutes a distinct propagable sort of Creatures in the Universe but these are only Various Schemes of matter or Substances that differ from each other but in consistence as Running Mercury and the same Metal congeal'd by the Vapor of Lead and some very few other accidents as Tast or Smel or Inflamability or the want of them So that by a change of Texture not impossible to be wrought by the Fire and other Agents that have the Faculty not only to dissociate the smal parts of Bodies but afterwards to connect them after
but inanimate Bodies since such fruits of the Chymists skill differ from one another but in so few qualities that we see plainly that by fire and other Agents we can employ we can easily enough work as great alterations upon matter as those that are requisite to change one of these Chymical Productions into another Since the same portion of matter may without being Compounded with any extraneous Body or at least Element be made to put on such a variety of formes and consequently to be successively turn'd into so many differing Bodies And since the matter cloath'd with so many differing formes was originally but water and that in its passage thorow so many transformations it was never reduc'd into any of those substances which are reputed to be the Principles or Elements of mixt Bodies except by the violence of the fire which it self divides not Bodies into perfectly simple or Elementary substances but into new Compounds Since I say these things are so I see not why we must needs believe that there are any Primogeneal and simple Bodies of which as of Pre-exsistent Elements Nature is obliged to compound all others Nor do I see why we may not conceive that she may produce the Bodies accounted mixt out of one another by Variously altering and contriving their minute parts without resolving the matter into any such simple or Homogeneous substances as are pretended Neither to dispatch do I see why it should be counted absur'd to think that when a Body is resolv'd by the Fire into its suppos'd simple Ingredients those substances are not true and proper Elements but rather were as it were Accidentally produc'd by the fire which by Dissipating a Body into minute Parts does if those parts be shut up in Close Vessels for the most part necessarily bring them to Associate Themselves after another manner than before and so bring Them into Bodies of such Different Consistences as the Former Texture of the Body and Concurrent Circumstances make such disbanded particles apt to Constitute as experience shews us and I have both noted it and prov'd it already that as there are some Concretes whose parts when dissipated by fire are fitted to be put into such Schemes of matter as we call Oyle and Salt and Spirit So there are others such as are especially the greatest part of Minerals whose Corpuscles being of another Size or figure or perhaps contriv'd another Way will not in the Fire yield Bodies of the like Consistences but rather others of differing Textures Not to mention that from Gold and some other Bodies we see not that the Fire separates any Distinct Substances at all nor That even those Similar Parts of Bodies which the Chymists Obtain by the Fire are the Elements whose names they bear but Compound Bodies upon which for their resemblance to them in consistence or some other obvious Quality Chymists have been pleas'd to bestow such Appellations THE CONCLUSION THese last Words of Carneades being soon after follow'd by a noise which seem'd to come from the place where the rest of the Company was he took it for a warning that it was time for him to conclude or break off his Discourse and told his Friend By this time I hope you see Eleutherius that if Helmonts Experiments be true it is no absurdity to question whether that Doctrine be one that doth not assert Any Elements in the sence before explain'd But because that as divers of my Arguments suppose the marvellous power of the Alkahest in the Analyzing of Bodies so the Effects ascrib'd to that power are so unparallell'd and stupendious that though I am not sure but that there may be such an Agent yet little less than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems requisite to make a man sure there is And consequently I leave it to you to judge how farre those of my Arguments that are built upon Alkahestical Operations are weakned by that Liquors being Matchless and shall therefore desire you not to think that I propose this Paradox that rejects all Elements as an Opinion equally probable with the former part of my discourse For by that I hope you are satisfied that the Arguments wont to be brought by Chymists to prove That all Bodies consist of either Three Principles or Five are far from being so strong as those that I have employ'd to prove that there is not any certain and Determinate number of such Principles or Elements to be met with Universally in all mixt Bodies And I suppose I need not tell you that these Anti-Chymical Paradoxes might have been manag'd more to their Advantage but that having not confin'd my Curiosity to Chymical Experiments I who am but a young Man and younger Chymist can yet be but slenderly furnished with them in reference to so great and difficult a Task as you impos'd upon me Besides that to tell you the Truth I durst not employ some even of the best Experiments I am acquainted with because I must not yet disclose them but however I think I may presume that what I have hitherto Discoursed will induce you to think that Chymists have been much more happy in finding Experiments than the Causes of them or in assigning the Principles by which they may best be explain'd And indeed when in the writings of Paracelsus I meet with such Phantastick and Un-intelligible Discourses as that Writer often puzzels and tyres his Reader with father'd upon such excellent Experiments as though he seldom clearly teaches I often find he knew me thinks the Chymists in their searches after truth are not unlike the Navigators of Solomons Tarshish Fleet who brought home from their long and tedious Voyages not only Gold and Silver and Ivory but Apes and Peacocks too For so the Writings of several for I say not all of your Hermetick Philosophers present us together with divers Substantial and noble Experiments Theories which either like Peacocks feathers make a great shew but are neither solid nor useful or else like Apes if they have some appearance of being rational are blemish'd with some absurdity or other that when they are Attentively consider'd makes them appear Ridiculous Carneades having thus finish'd his Discourse against the received Doctrines of the Elements Eleutherius judging he should not have time to say much to him before their separation made some haste to tell him I confess Carneades that you have said more in favour of your Paradoxes then I expected For though divers of the Experiments you have mention'd are no secrets and were not unknown to me yet besides that you have added many of your own unto them you have laid them together in such a way and apply'd them to such purposes and made such Deductions From them as I have not Hitherto met with But though I be therefore inclin'd to think that Philoponus had he heard you would scarce have been able in all points to defend the Chymical Hypothesis against the arguments wherewith you have oppos'd it yet me thinks that however
Aqua Regis and I speak it knowingly by divers other Menstruums be reduc'd into a seeming Liquor in so much that the Corpuscles of Gold will with those of the Menstruum pass through Cap-Paper and with them also coagulate into a Crystalline Salt And I have further try'd that with a small quantity of a certain Saline Substance I prepar'd I can easily enough sublime Gold into the form of red Crystalls of a considerable length and many other wayes may Gold be disguis'd and help to constitute Bodies of very differing Natures both from It and from one another and neverthelesse be afterward reduc'd to the self-same Numerical Yellow Fixt Ponderous and Malleable Gold it was before its commixture Nor is it only the fixedst of Metals but the most fugitive that I may employ in favour of our Proposition for Quicksilver will with divers Metals compose an Amalgam with divers Menstruums it seems to be turnd into a Liquor with Aqua fortis it will be brought into either a red or white Powder or precipitate with Oyl of Vitriol into a pale Yellow one with Sulphur it will compose a blood-red and volatile Cinaber with some Saline Bodies it will ascend in form of a Salt which will be dissoluble in water with Regulus of Antimony and Silver I have seen it sublim'd into a kinde of Crystals with another Mixture I reduc'd it into a malleable Body into a hard and brittle Substance by another And some there are who affirm that by proper Additaments they can reduce Quicksilver into Oyl nay into Glass to mention no more And yet out of all these exotick Compounds we may recover the very same running Mercury that was the main Ingredient of them and was so disguis'd in them Now the Reason proceeds Carneades that I have represented these things concerning Gold and Quicksilver is That it may not appear absurd to conceive that such little primary Masses or Clusters as our Proposition mentions may remain undissipated notwithstanding their entring into the composition of various Concretions since the Corpuscle of Gold and Mercury though they be not primary Concretions of the most minute Particles of matter but confessedly mixt Bodies are able to concurre plentifully to the composition of several very differing Bodies without losing their own Nature or Texture or having their cohaesion violated by the divorce of their associated parts or Ingredients Give me leave to add sayes Eleutherius on this occasion to what you now observ'd that as confidently as some Chymists and other modern Innovators in Philosophy are wont to object against the Peripateticks That from the mixture of their four Elements there could arise but an inconsiderable variety of compound Bodies yet if the Aristotelians were but half as well vers'd in the works of Nature as they are in the Writings of their Master the propos'd Objection would not so calmly triumph as for want of Experiments they are fain to suffer it to do For if we assigne to the Corpuscles whereof each Element consists a peculiar size and shape it may easily enough be manifested That such differingly figur'd Corpuscles may be mingled in such various Proportions and may be connected so many several wayes that an almost incredible number of variously qualified Concretes may be compos'd of them Especially since the Corpuscles of one Element may barely by being associated among themselves make up little Masses of differing size and figure from their constituent parts and since also to the strict union of such minute Bodies there seems oftentimes nothing requisite besides the bare Contact of a great part of their Surfaces And how great a variety of Phaenomena the same matter without the addition of any other and only several ways dispos'd or contexed is able to exhibit may partly appear by the multitude of differing Engins which by the contrivances of skilful Mechanilians and the dexterity of expert Workmen may be made of Iron alone But in our present case being allow'd to deduce compound Bodies from four very differently qualified sorts of matter he who shall but consider what you freshly took notice of concerning the new Concretes resulting from the mixture of incorporated Minerals will scarce doubt but that the four Elements mannag'd by Natures Skill may afford a multitude of differing Compounds I am thus far of your minde sayes Carneades that the Aristotelians might with probability deduce a much greater number of compound Bodies from the mixture of their four Elements than according to their present Hypothesis they can if instead of vainly attempting to deduce the variety and properties of all mixt Bodies from the Combinations and Temperaments of the four Elements as they are among them endowd with the four first Qualities they had endeavoured to do it by the Bulk and Figure of the smallest parts of those supposed Elements For from these more Catholick and Fruitfull Accidents of the Elementary matter may spring a great variety of Textures upon whose Account a multitude of compound Bodies may very much differ from one another And what I now observe touching the four Peripatetick Elements may be also applyed mutatis mutandis as they speak to the Chymical Principles But to take notice of that by the by both the one and the other must I fear call in to their assistance something that is not Elementary to excite or regulate the motion of the parts of the matter and dispose them after the manner requisite to the Constitution of particular Concretes For that otherwise they are like to give us but a very imperfect account of the Origine of very many mixt Bodies It would I think be no hard matter to perswade you if it would not spend time and were no Digression to examine what they are wont to alledge of the Origine of the Textures and Qualities of mixt Bodies from a certain substantial Form whose Origination they leave more obscure than what it is assum'd to explicate But to proceed to a new Proposition Propos III I shall not peremptorily deny that from most of such mixt Bodies as partake either of Animal or Vegetable Nature there may by the Help of the Fire be actually obtain'd a determinate number whether Three Four or Five or fewer or more of Substances worthy of differing Denominations Of the Experiments that induce me to make this Concession I am like to have occasion enough to mention several in the prosecution of my Discourse And therefore that I may not hereafter be oblig'd to trouble You and my self with needless Repetitions I shall now only desire you to take notice of such Experiments when they shall be mention'd and in your thoughts referre them hither To these three Concessions I have but this Fourth to add That Propos IV It may likewise be granted that those distinct Substances which Concretes generally either afford or are made up of may without very much Inconvenience be call'd the Elements or Principles of them When I said without very much Inconvenience I had in my
perhaps tell you of other Operations upon Antimony whereby That may be extracted from it which cannot be forc'd out of it by the Fire but I shall reserve them for a fitter Opportunity and only annex at present this sleight but not impertinent Experiment That whereas I lately observed to you that the Urinous and common Salts whereof Sal Armoniack consists remain'd unsever'd by the Fire in many successive Sublimations they may be easily separated and partly without any Fire at all by pouring upon the Concrete finely powder'd a Solution of Salt of Tartar or of the Salt of Wood-Ashes for upon your diligently mixing of these you will finde your Nose invaded with a very strong smell of Urine and perhaps too your Eyes forc'd to water by the same subtle and piercing Body that produces the stink both these effects proceeding from hence that by the Alcalizate Salt the Sea Salt that enter'd the composition of the Sal Armoniack is mortify'd and made more fixt and thereby a divorce is made between it and the volatile Urinous Salt which being at once set at liberty and put into motion begins presently to fly away and to offend the Nostrils and Eyes it meets with by the way And if the operation of these Salts be in convenient Glasses promoted by warmth though but by that of a Bath the ascending Steams may easily be caught and reduc'd into a penetrant Spirit abounding with a Salt which I have sometimes found to be separable in a Crystalline Form I might add to these Instances that whereas Sublimate consisting as you know of Salts Quicksilver combin'd and carried up together by Heat may be Sublim'd I know not how often by a like degree of Fire without suffering any divorce of the component Bodies the Mercury may be easily sever'd from the adhering Salts if the Sublimate be distill'd from Salt of Tartar Quick Lime or such Alcalizate Bodies But I will rather observe to you Eleutherius what divers ingenious men have thought somewhat strange that by such an Additament that seems but only to promote the Separation there may be easily obtain'd from a Concrete that by the Fire alone is easily divisible into all the Elements that Vegetables are suppos'd to consist of such a similar Substance as differs in many respects from them all and consequently has by many of the most Intelligent Chymists been denied to be contain'd in the mixt Body For I know a way and have practis'd it whereby common Tartat without the addition of any thing that is not perfectly a Mineral except Salt-petre may by one Distillation in an Earthen Retort be made to afford good store of real Salt readily dissoluble in water which I found to be neither acid nor of the smell of Tartar and to be almost as volatile as Spirit of Wine it self and to be indeed of so differing a Nature from all that is wont to be separated by Fire from Tartar that divers Learned Men with whom I discours'd of it could hardly be brought to beleeve that so fugitive a Salt could be afforded by Tartar till I assur'd it them upon my own Knowledge And if I did not think you apt to suspect me to be rather too backward than too forward to credit or affirm unlikely things I could convince you by what I have yet lying by me of that anomalous Salt The Fourth thing that I shall alledge to countenance my first Consideration is That the Fire even when it divides a Body into Substances of divers Consistences does not most commonly analyze it into Hypostatical Principles but only disposes its parts into new Textures and thereby produces Concretes of a new indeed but yet of a compound Nature This Argument it will be requisite for me to prosecute so fully hereafter that I hope you will then confess that 't is not for want of good Proofs that I desire leave to suspend my Proofs till the Series of my Discourse shall make it more proper and seasonable to propose them It may be further alledg'd on the behalf of my First Consideration That some such distinct Substances may be obtain'd from some Concretes without Fire as deserve no less the name of Elementary than many that Chymists extort by the Violence of the Fire We see that the Inflamable Spirit or as the Chymists esteem it the Sulphur of Wine may not only be separated from it by the gentle heat of a Bath but may be distill'd either by the help of the Sun-Beams or even of a Dunghill being indeed of so Fugitive a Nature that it is not easy to keep it from flying away even without the Application of external heat I have likewise observ'd that a Vessel full of Urine being plac'd in a Dunghill the Putrefaction is wont after some weeks so to open the Body that the parts disbanding the Saline Spirit will within no very long time if the Vessel be not stopt fly away of it self Insomuch that from such Urine I have been able to distill little or nothing else than a nauseous Phlegme instead of the active and piercing Salt and Spirit that it would have afforded when first expos'd to the Fire if the Vessel had been carefully stopt And this leads me to consider in the Fifth place That it will be very hard to prove that there can no other Body or way be given which will as well as the Fire divide Concretes into several homogeneous Substances which may consequently be call'd their Elements or Principles as well as those separated or produc'd by the Fire For since we have lately seen that Nature can successefully employ other Instruments than the Fire to separate distinct Substances from mixt Bodies how know we but that Nature has made or Art may make some such Substance as may be a fit Instrument to Analyze mixt Bodies or that some such Method may be found by Humane Industry or Luck by whose means compound Bodies may be resolv'd into other Substances than such as they are wont to be divided into by the Fire And why the Products of such an Analysis may not as justly be call'd the component Principles of the Bodies that afford them it will not be easy to shew especially since I shall hereafter make it evident that the Substances which Chymists are wont to call the Salts and Sulphurs and Mercuries of Bodies are not so pure and Elementary as they presume and as their Hypothesis requires And this may therefore be the more freely press'd upon the Chymists because neither the Paracelsians nor the Helmontians can reject it without apparent Injury to their respective Masters For Helmont do's more than once Inform his Readers that both Paracelsus and Himself were Possessors of the famous Liquor Alkahest which for its great power in resolving Bodies irresoluble by Vulgar Fires he somewhere seems to call Ignis Gehennae To this Liquor he ascribes and that in great part upon his own Experience such wonders that if we suppose them all true I am so much
the more a Friend to Knowledge than to Wealth that I should think the Alkahest a nobler and more desireable Secret than the Philosophers Stone it self Of this Universal Dissolvent he relates That having digested with it for a competent time a piece of Oaken Charcoal it was thereby reduc'd into a couple of new and distinct Liquors discriminated from each other by their Colour and Situation and that the whole body of the Coal was reduc'd into those Liquors both of them separable from his Immortal Menstruum which remain'd as fit for such Operations as before And he moreover tells us in divers places of his Writings that by this powerful and unwearied Agent he could dissolve Metals Marchasites Stones Vegetable and Animal Bodies of what kinde soever and even Glass it self first reduc'd to powder and in a word all kinds of mixt Bodies in the World into their several similar Substances without any Residence or Caput mortuum And lastly we may gather this further from his Informations That the homogeneous Substances obtainable from compound Bodies by his piercing Liquor were oftentimes different enough both as to Number and as to Nature from those into which the same Bodies are wont to be divided by common Fire Of which I shall need in this place to mention no other proof then that whereas we know that in our common Analysis of a mixt Body there remains a terrestrial and very fixt Substance oftentimes associated with a Salt as fixt Our Author tells us that by his way he could Distill over all Concretes without any Caput mortuum and consequently could make those parts of the Concrete volatile which in the Vulgar Analysis would have been fixt So that if our Chymists will not reject the solemn and repeated Testimony of a Person who cannot but be acknowledg'd for one of the greatest Spagyrists that they can boast of they must not deny that there is to be found in Nature another Agent able to Analyze compound Bodies less violently and both more genuinely and more universally than the Fire And for my own part though I cannot but say on this Occasion what you know our Friend Mr. Boyle is wont to say when he is askt his Opinion of any strange Experiment That He that hath seen it hath more Reason to beleeve it than He that hath not yet I have found Helmont so faithful a Writer even in divers of his improbable Experiments I alwayes except that Extravagant Treatise De Magnetica Vulnerum Curatione which some of his Friends affirm to have been first publish'd by his Enemies that I think it somewhat harsh to give him the Lye especially to what he delivers upon his own proper Tryal And I have heard from very credible Eye-witnesses some things and seen some others my self which argue so strongly that a circulated Salt or a Menstruum such as it may be may by being abstracted from compound Bodies whether Mineral Animal or Vegetable leave them more unlockt than a wary Naturalist would easily beleeve that I dare not confidently measure the Power of Nature and Art by that of the Menstruums and other Instruments that eminent Chymists themselves are as yet wont to Empoly about the Analyzing of Bodies nor Deny that a Menstruum may at least from this or that particular Concrete obtain some apparently similar Substance differing from any obtainable from the same Body by any degree or manner of Application of the Fire And I am the more backward to deny peremptorily that there may be such Openers of compound Bodies because among the Experiments that make me speak thus warily there wanted not some in which it appear'd not that one of the Substances not separable by common Fires and Menstruums could retain any thing of the Salt by which the separation was made And here Eleutherius sayes Carneades I should conclude as much of my Discourse as belongs to the first Consideration I propos'd but that I foresee that what I have delivered will appear liable to two such specious Objections that I cannot safely proceed any further till I have examin'd them And first one sort of Opposers will be forward to tell me That they do not pretend by Fire alone to separate out of all compound Bodies their Hypostatical Principles it being sufficient that the Fire divides them into such though afterwards they employ other Bodies to collect the similar parts of the Compound as 't is known that though they make use of water to collect the Saline parts of Ashes from the Terrestrial wherewith they are blended yet it is the Fire only that Incinerates Bodies and reduces the fix'd part of them into the Salt and Earth where of Ashes are made up This Objection is not I confess inconsiderable and I might in great part allow of it without granting it to make against me if I would content my self to answer that it is not against those that make it that I have been disputing but against those Vulgar Chymists who themselves believe and would fain make others do so That the Fire is not only an universal but an adaequate and sufficient Instrument to analyze mixt Bodies with For as to their Practice of Extracting the fix'd Salt out of Ashes by the Affusion of Water 't is obvious to alleadge that the Water does only assemble together the Salt the Fire had before divided from the Earth as a Sieve does not further break the Corn but only bring together into two distinct heaps the Flour and the Bran whose Corpuscles before lay promiscuously blended together in the Meal This I say I might alleadge and thereby exempt my self from the need of taking any farther notice of the propos'd Objection But not to lose the Rise it may afford me of Illustrating the matter under Consideration I am content briefly to consider it as far forth as my present Disquisition may be concern'd in it Not to repeat then what has been already answer'd I say farther that though I am so civil an Adversary that I will allow the Chymists after the Fire has done all its work the use of fair Water to make their Extractions with in such cases wherein the Water does not cooperate with the Fire to make the Analysis yet since I Grant this but upon Supposition that the Water does only wash off the Saline Particles which the Fire Alone has Before Extricated in the Analyz'd Body it will not be Reasonable that this Concession should Extend to other Liquors that may Add to what they Dissolve nor so much as to other Cases than those Newly Mentioned Which Limitation I Desire You would be Pleas'd to Bear in Mind till I shall Anon have Occasion to make Use of it And This being thus Premis'd I shall Proceed to Observe First That Many of the Instances I Propos'd in the Preceding Discourse are Such that the Objection we are Considering will not at all Reach Them For Fire can no more with the Assistance of Water than without it Separate any of
the Three Principles either from Gold Silver Mercury or some Others of the Concretes named Above Hence We may Inferre That Fire is not an Universal Analyzer of all Mixt Bodies since of Metals and Minerals wherein Chymists have most Exercis'd Themselves there Appear scarce Any which they are able to Aanlyze by Fire Nay from which they can Unquestionably Separate so much as any One of their Hypostatical Principles Which may well Appear no small Disparagement as well to their Hypothesis as to their Pretensions It will also remain True notwithstanding the Objection That there may be Other Wayes than the wonted Analysis by Fire to Separate from a Compound Body Substances as Homogeneneous as those that Chymists Scruple not to Reckon among their Tria Prima as some of them for Brevity Sake call their Three Principles And it Appears That by Convenient Additaments such Substances may be Separated by the Help of the Fire as could not be so by the Fire alone Witness the Sulphur of Antimony And Lastly I must Represent That since it appears too that the Fire is but One of the Instruments that must be Employ'd in the Resolution of Bodies We may Reasonably Challenge the Liberty of doing Two Things For when ever any Menstruum or other Additament is Employ'd together with the Fire to Obtain a Sulphur or a Salt from a Body We may well take the Freedom to Examine whether or no That Menstruum do barely Help to Separate the Principle Obtain'd by It or whether there Intervene not a Coalition of the Parts of the Body Wrought upon with Those of the Menstruum whereby the Produc'd Concrete may be Judg'd to Result from the Union of Both. And it will be farther Allowable for Us to Consider how far any Substance Separated by the Help of such Additaments Ought to pass for one of the Tria Prima since by One Way of Handling the same Mixt Body it may according to the Nature of the Additaments and the Method of Working upon it be made to Afford differing Substances from those Obtainable from it by other Additaments and another Method nay and as may appear by what I Formerly told You about Tartar Differing from any of the Substances into which a Concrete is Divisible by the Fire without Additaments though perhaps those Additaments do not as Ingredients enter the Composition of the Obtained Body but only Diversify the Operation of the Fire upon the Concrete and though that Concrete by the Fire alone may be Divided into a Number of Differing Substances as Great as any of the Chymists that I have met with teach us that of the Elements to be And having said thus much sayes Carneades to the Objection likely to be Propos'd by some Chymists I am now to Examine that which I Foresee will be Confidently press'd by Divers Peripateticks who to Prove Fire to be the true Analyzer of Bodies will Plead That it is the very Definition of Heat given by Aristotle and Generally Received Congregare Homogenea Heterogenea Segregare to Assemble Things of a Resembling and Disjoyn those of a Differing Nature To this I answer That this Effect is far from being so Essential to Heat as 't is Generally Imagin'd for it rather Seems that the True and Genuine Property of Heat is to set a Moving and thereby to Dissociate the parts of Bodies and Subdivide them into Minute Particles without regard to their being Homogeneous or Heterogeneous as is apparent in the Boyling of Water the Distillation of Quicksilver or the Exposing of Bodies to the action of the Fire whose Parts either Are not at least in that Degree of Heat Appear not Dissmilar where all that the Fire can do is to Divide the Body into very Minute Parts which are of the same Nature with one another and with their Totum as their Reduction by Condensation Evinces And even when the Fire seems most so Congregare Homogenea Segregare Heterogenea it Produces that Effect but by Accident For the Fire does but Dissolve the Cement or rather Shatter the Frame or tructure that kept the Heterogeneous Parts of Bodies together under one Common Form upon which Dissolution the Component Particles of the Mixt being Freed and set at Liberty do Naturally and oftentimes without any Operation of the Fire Associate themselves each with its Like or rather do take those places which their Several Degrees of Gravity and Levity Fixedness or Volatility either Natural or Adventitious from the Impression of the Fire Assigne them Thus in the Distillation for Instance of Man's Blood the Fire do's First begin to Dissolve the Nexus or Cement of the Body and then the Water being the most Volatile and Easy to be Extracted is either by the Igneous Atomes or the Agitation they are put into by the Fire first carried up till Forsaken by what carried it up its Weight sinks it down into the Receiver but all this while the other Principles of the Concrete Remain Unsever'd and Require a stronger Degree of Heat to make a Separation of its more Fixt Elements and therefore the Fire must be Increas'd which Carries over the Volatile Salt and the Spirit they being though Beleev'd to be Differing Principles and though Really of Different Consistency yet of an almost Equal Volatility After them as less Fugitive comes over the Oyl and leaves behinde the Earth and the Alcali which being of an Equal Fixednesse the Fire Severs them not for all the Definition of the Schools And if into a Red-hot Earthen or Iron Retort you cast the Matter to be Distill'd You may Observe as I have often done that the Predominant Fire will Carry up all the Volatile Elements Confusedly in one Fume which will afterwards take their Places in the Receiver either according to the Degree of their Gravity or according to the Exigency of their respective Textures the Salt Adhering for the most part to the Sides and Top and the Phlegme Fastening it self there too in great Drops the Oyle and Spirit placing themselves Under or Above one another according as their Ponderousness makes them Swim or Sink For 't is Observable that though Oyl or Liquid Sulphur be one of the Elements Separated by this Fiery Analysis yet the Heat which Accidentally Unites the Particles of the other Volatile Principles has not alwayes the same Operation on this there being divers Bodies which Yield Two Oyls whereof the One sinks to the Bottom of that Spirit on which the other Swims as I can shew You in some Oyls of the same Deers Blood which are yet by Me Nay I can shew you Two Oyls carefully made of the same Parcel of Humane Blood which not only Differ extreamly in Colour but Swim upon one another without Mixture and if by Agitation Confounded will of themselves Divorce again And that the Fire doth oftentimes divide Bodies upon the account that some of their Parts are more Fixt and some more Volatile how far soever either of these Two may be from a
Rochas has presented his Readers an Experiment which if it were punctually such as he has deliver'd it is very Notable He then Discoursing of the Generation of things according to certain Chymical and Metaphorical Notions which I confess are not to me Intelligible sets down among divers Speculations not pertinent to our Subject the following Narrative which I shall repeat to you the sence of in English with as little variation from the Literal sence of the French words as my memory will enable me Having sayes he discern'd such great Wonders by the Natural Operation of Water I would know what may be done with it by Art Imitating Nature Wherefore I took Water which I well knew not to be compounded nor to be mix'd with any other thing than that Spirit of Life whereof he had spoken before and with a Heat Artificial Continual and Proportionate I prepar'd and dispos'd it by the above mention'd Graduations of Coagulation Congelation and Fixation untill it was turn'd into Earth which Earth produc'd Animals Vegetables and Minerals I tell not what Animals Vegetables and Minerals for that is reserv'd for another Occasion but the Animals did Move of themselves Eat c. and by the true Anatomie I made of them I found that they were compos'd of much Sulphur little Mercury and less Salt The Minerals began to grow and encrease by converting into their own Nature one part of the Earth thereunto dispos'd they were solid and heavy And by this truly Demonstrative Science namely Chymistry I found that they were compos'd of much Salt little Sulphur and less Mercury But sayes Carneades I have some Suspitions concerning this strange Relation which make me unwilling to Declare an Opinion of it unless I were satisfied concerning divers Material Circumstances that our Author has left unmentioned though as for the Generation of Living Creatures both Vegetable and Sensitive it needs not seem Incredible since we finde that our common water which indeed is often Impregnated with Variety of Seminal Principles and Rudiments being long kept in a quiet place will putrifie and stink and then perhaps too produce Moss and little Worms or other Insects according to the nature of the Seeds that were lurking in it I must likewise desire you to take Notice that as Helmont gives us no Instance of the Production of Minerals out of Water so the main Argument that he employ's to prove that they and other Bodies may be resolv'd into water is drawn from the Operations of his Alkahest and consequently cannot be satisfactorily Examin'd by You and Me. Yet certainly sayes Eleutherius You cannot but have somewhat wonder'd as well as I to observe how great a share of Water goes to the making up of Divers Bodies whose Disguises promise nothing neere so much The Distillation of Eeles though it yielded me some Oyle and Spirit and Volatile Salt besides the Caput mortuum yet were all these so disproportionate to the Phlegm that came from them and in which at first they boyl'd as in a Pot of Water that they seem'd to have bin nothing but coagulated Phlegm which does likewise strangely abound in Vipers though they are esteem'd very hot in Operation and will in a Convenient Aire survive some dayes the loss of their Heads and Hearts so vigorous is their Vivacity Mans Bloud it self as Spirituous and as Elaborate a Liquor as 't is reputed does so abound in Phlegm that the other Day Distilling some of it on purpose to try the Experiment as I had formerly done in Deers Bloud out of about seven Ounces and a half of pure Bloud we drew neere six Ounces of Phlegm before any of the more operative Principles began to arise and Invite us to change the Receiver And to satisfie my self that some of these Animall Phlegms were void enough of Spirit to deserve that Name I would not content my self to taste them only but fruitlesly pour'd on them acid Liquors to try if they contain'd any Volatile Salt or Spirit which had there been any there would probably have discover'd it self by making an Ebullition with the affused Liquor And now I mention Corrosive Spirits I am minded to Informe you That though they seem to be nothing else but Fluid Salts yet they abound in Water as you may Observe if either you Entangle and so Fix their Saline Part by making them Corrode some idoneous Body or else if you mortifie it with a contrary Salt as I have very manifestly Observ'd in the making a Medecine somewhat like Helmont's Balsamus Samech with Distill'd Vinager instead of Spirit of Wine wherewith he prepares it For you would scarce Beleeve what I have lately Observ'd that of that acid Spirit the Salt of Tartar from which it is Distill'd will by mortifying and retaining the acid Salt turn into worthless Phlegm neere twenty times its weight before it be so fully Impregnated as to rob no more Distill'd Vinager of its Salt And though Spirit of Wine Exquisitely rectify'd seem of all Liquors to be the most free from Water it being so Igneous that it will Flame all away without leaving the least Drop behinde it yet even this Fiery Liquor is by Helmont not improbably affirm'd in case what he relates be True to be Materially Water under a Sulphureous Disguise For according to him in the making that excellent Medecine Paracelsus his Balsamus Samech which is nothing but Sal Tartari dulcify'd by Distilling from it Spirit of Wine till the Salt be sufficiently glutted with its Sulphur and suffer the Liquor to be drawn off as strong as it was pour'd on when the Salt of Tartar from which it is Distill'd hath retain'd or depriv'd it of the Sulphureous parts of the Spirit of Wine the rest which is incomparably the greater part of the Liquor will remigrate into Phlegm I added that Clause In case what he Relates be True because I have not as yet sufficiently try'd it my self But not only something of Experiment keeps me from thinking it as many Chymists do absurd though I have as well as they in vain try'd it with ordinary Salt of Tartar but besides that Helmont often Relates it and draws Consequences from it A Person noted for his Sobernesse and Skill in Spagyrical Preparations having been askt by me Whether the Experiment might not be made to succeed if the Salt and Spirit were prepar'd according to a way suitable to my Principles he affirm'd to me that he had that way I propos'd made Helmont's Experiment succeed very well without adding any thing to the Salt and Spirit But our way is neither short nor Easie I have indeed sayes Carneades sometimes wonder'd to see how much Phlegme may be obtain'd from Bodies by the Fire But concerning that Phlegme I may anon have Occasion to note something which I therefore shall not now anticipate But to return to the Opinion of Thales and of Helmont I consider that supposing the Alkahest could reduce all Bodies into water yet whether that water
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
his Volatiliz'd Gold out of the Antimonial butter wherewith it is strictly united Now Continues Carneades if a Compound body consist of Ingredients that are not meerly Elementary it is not hard to conceive that the Substances into which the Fire Dissolves it though seemingly Homogeneous enough may be of a Compounded Nature those parts of each body that are most of Kin associating themselves into a Compound of a new Kind As when for example sake I have caus'd Vitrioll and Sal Armoniack and Salt Petre to be mingl'd and Destill'd together the Liquor that came over manifested it self not to be either Spirit of Nitre or of Sal Armoniack or of Vitrioll For none of these would dissolve crude gold which yet my Liquor was able readily to do and thereby manifested it self to be a new Compound consisting at least of Spirit of Nitre and Sal Armoniack for the latter dissolv'd in the former will Work on Gold which nevertheless are not by any known way separable and consequently would not pass for a Mixt Body if we our selves did not to obtain it put and Distill together divers Concretes whose Distinct Operations were known before hand And to add on this Occasion the Experiment I lately promis'd You because it is Applicable to our present purpose I shall Acquaint You that suspecting the Common Oyle of Vitrioll not to be altogether such a simple Liquor as Chymists presume it I mingl'd it with an equal or a Double Quantity for I try'd the Experiment more then once of common Oyle of Turpentine such as together with the other Liquor I bought at the Drugsters And having carefully for the Experiment is Nice and somewhat dangerous Distill'd the Mixture in a small Glass Retort I obtain'd according to my Desire besides the two Liquors I had put in a pretty Quantity of a certain substance which sticking all about the Neck of the Retort Discover'd it self to be Sulphur not only by a very strong Sulphureous smell and by the colour of Brimstone but also by this That being put upon a coal it was immediately kindl'd and burn'd like common Sulphur And of this Substance I have yet by me some little Parcells which You may command and examine when you please So that from this Experiment I may deduce either one or both of these Propositions That a real Sulphur may be made by the Conjunction of two such Substances as Chymists take for Elementary And which did not either of them apart appear to have any such body in it or that Oyle of Vitrioll though a Distill'd Liquor and taken for part of the Saline Principle of the Concrete that yields it may yet be so Compounded a body as to contain besides its Saline part a Sulphur like common brimstone which would hardly be it self a simple or un-compounded body I might pursues Carneades remind You that I formerly represented it as possible That as there may be more Elements then five or six so the Elements of one body may be Different from those of another whence it would follow that from the Resolution of Decompound compound body there may result Mixts of an altogether new kind by the Coalition of Elements that never perhaps conven'd before I might I say mind You of this and add divers things to this second Consideration but for fear of wanting time I willingly pretermit them to pass on to the third which is this That the Fire does not alwayes barely resolve or take asunder but may also after a new manner mingle and compound together the parts whether Elementary or not of the Body Dissipated by it This is so evident sayes Carneades in some obvious Examples that I cannot but wonder at their Supiness that have not taken notice of it For when Wood being burnt in a Chimney is dissipated by the Fire into Smoke and Ashes that smoke composes soot which is so far from being any one of the principles of the Wood that as I noted above you may by a further Anlysis separate five or six distinct substances from it And as for the remaining Ashes the Chymists themselves teach us that by a further degree of fire they may be indissolubly united into glass 'T is true that the Analysis which the Chymists principally build upon is made not in the open air but in close Vessels but however the Examples lately produc'd may invite you shrewdly to suspect That heat may as well compound as dissipate the Parts of mixt Bodies and not to tell you that I have known a Vitrification made even in close vessels I must remind you that the Flowers of Antimony and those of Sulphur are very mix'd Bodies though they ascend in close vessells And that 't was in stopt glasses that I brought up the whole Body of Camphire And whereas it may be objected that all these Examples are of Bodies forc'd up in a dry not a Fluid forme as are the Liquors wont to be obtain'd by distillation I answer That besides that 't is possible that a Body may be chang'd from Consistent to Fluid or from Fluid to Consistent without being otherwise much altered as may appear by the Easiness wherewith in Winter without any Addition or Separation of Visible Ingredients the same substance may be quickly harden'd into brittle Ice and thaw'd again into Fluid Water Besides this I say it would be consider'd that common Quick-silver it self which the Eminentest Chymists confess to be a mixt Body may he Driven over the Helme in its Pristine forme of Quicksilver and consequently in that of a Liquor And certainly 't is possible that very compounded Bodies may concur to Constitute Liquors Since not to mention that I have found it possible by the help of a certain Menstruum to distill Gold it self through a Retort even with a Moderate Fire Let us but consider what happens in Butter of Antimony For if that be carefully rectify'd it may be reduc'd into a very clear Liquor and yet if You cast a quantity of fair water upon it there will quickly precipitate a Ponderous and Vomitive Calx which made before a considerable part of the Liquor and yet is indeed though some eminent Chymists would have it Mercurial an Antimonial Body carryed over and kept dissolv'd by the Salts of the Sublimate and consequently a compounded one as You may find if You will have the Curiosity to Examine this White powder by a skilful Reduction And that You may not think that Bodies as compounded as flowers of Brimstone cannot be brought to Concurr to Constitute Distill'd Liquors And also That You may not imagine with Divers Learned Men that pretend no small skill in Chymistry that at least no mixt Body can be brought over the Helme but by corrosive Salts I am ready to shew You when You please among other wayes of bringing over Flowers of Brimstone perhaps I might add even Mineral Sulphurs some wherein I employ none but Oleaginous bodies to make Volatile Liquors in which not only the colour but which
their bare Assertions And that you may not Eleutherius think I deal so rigidly with them because I scruple to Take these Productions of the Fire for such as the Chymists would have them pass for upon the account of their having some affinity with them consider a little with me that in regard an Element or Principle ought to be perfectly Similar and Homogeneous there is no just cause why I should rather give the body propos'd the Name of this or that Element or Principle because it has a resemblance to it in some obvious Quality rather then deny it that name upon the account of divers other Qualities wherein the propos'd Bodies are unlike and if you do but consider what sleight and easily producible qualities they are that suffice as I have already more then once observ'd to Denominate a Chymical Principle or an Element you 'l not I hope think my wariness to be destitute either of Example or else of Reason For we see that the Chymists will not allow the Aristotelians that the Salt in Ashes ought to be called Earth though the Saline and Terrestrial part symbolize in weight in dryness in fixness and fusibility only because the one is sapid and dissoluble in Water and the other not Besides we see that sapidness and volatility are wont to denominate the Chymists Mercury or Spirit and yet how many Bodies think you may agree in those Qualities which may yet be of very differing natures and disagree in qualities either more numerous or more considerable or both For not only Spirit of Nitre Aqua Fortis Spirit of Salt Spirit of Oyle of Vitriol Spirit of Allome Spirit of Vinager and all Saline Liquors Distill'd from Animal Bodies but all the Acetous Spirits of Woods freed from their Vinager All these I say and many others must belong to the Chymists Mercury though it appear not why some of them should more be comprehended under one denomination then the Chymists Sulphur or Oyle should likewise be for their Distill'd Oyles are also Fluid Volatile and Tastable as well as their Mercury Nor is it Necessary that their Sulphur should be Unctuous or Dissoluble in Water since they generally referr Spirit of Wine to Sulphurs although that Spirit be not Unctuous and will freely mingle with Water So that bare Inflamability must constitute the Essence of the Chymists Sulphur as uninflamablenesse joyned with any taste is enough to intitle a Distill'd Liquor to be their Mercury Now since I can further observe to You that Spirit of Nitre and Spirit of Harts-horne being pour'd together will boile and hisse and tosse up one another into the air which the Chymists make signes of great Antipathy in the Natures of Bodies as indeed these Spirits differ much both in Taste Smell and Operations Since I elsewhere tell you of my having made two sorts of Oyle out of the same mans blood that would not mingle with one another And since I might tell You Divers Examples I have met with of the Contrariety of Bodies which according to the Chymists must be huddl'd up together under one Denomination I leave you to Judge whether such a multitude of Substances as may agree in these sleight Qualities and yet Disagree in Others more Considerable are more worthy to be call'd by the Name of a Principle which ought to be pure and homogeneous than to have appellations given them that may make them differ in name too from the bodies from which they so wildly differ in Nature And hence also by the bye you may perceive that 't is not unreasonable to distrust the Chymists way of Argumentation when being unable to shew us that such a Liquor is for Example purely saline they prove that at least salt is much the predominant principle because that the propos'd substance is strongly tasted and all Tast proceeds from salt whereas those Spirits such as spirit of Tartar spirit of Harts-horn and the like which are reckoned to be the Mercuries of the Bodies that afford them have manifestly a strong and piercing tast and so has according to what I formerly noted the spirit of Box c. even after the acid Liquor that concurr'd to compose it has been separated from it And indeed if sapidness belong not to the spirit or Mercurial Principle of Vegitables and Animals I scarce know how it will be discriminated from their phlegm since by the absence of Inflamability it must be distinguish'd from their sulphur which affords me another Example to prove how unacurate the Chymical Doctrine is in our present Case since not only the spirits of Vegitables and Animals but their Oyles are very strongly tasted as he that shall but wet his tongue with Chymical Oyle of Cinnamon or of Cloves or even of Turpentine may quickly find to his smart And not only I never try'd any Chymical Oyles whose tast was not very manifest and strong but a skilful and inquisitive person who made it his business by elaborate operations to depurate Chymical Oyles and reduce them to an Elementary simplicity Informes us that he never was able to make them at all Tastless whence I might inferr that the proof Chymists confidently give us of a bodies being saline is so far from demonstrating the Predominancy that it does not clearly Evince so much as the presence of the saline Principle in it But I will not pursues Carneades remind you that the Volatile salt of Harts-horn Amber Blood c. are exceeding strongly scented notwithstanding that most Chymists deduce Odours from Sulphur and from them argue the Predominancy of that Principle in the Odorous body because I must not so much as add any new Examples of the incompetency of this sort of Chymical arguments since having already detain'd You but too long in those generals that appertain to my fourth consideration 't is time that I proceed to the particulars themselves to which I thought fit they should be previous These Generals continues Carneades being thus premis'd we might the better survey the Unlikeness that an attentive and unprepossess'd observer may take notice of in each sort of Bodies which the Chymists are wont to call the salts or sulphurs or Mercuries of the Concretes that yield Them as if they had all a simplicity and Identity of Nature whereas salts if they were all Elementary would as little differ as do the Drops of pure and simple Water 'T is known that both Chymists and Physitians ascribe to the fixt salts of calcin'd Bodies the vertues of their concretes and consequently very differing Operations So we find the Alkali of Wormwood much commended in distempers of the stomach that of Eyebright for those that have a weak sight and that of Guaiacum of which a great Quantity yields but a very little salt is not only much commended in Venereal Diseases but is believed to have a peculiar purgative vertue which yet I have not had occasion to try And though I confess I have long thought that these Alkalizate salts are for
enough so call'd as Compounded of the Volatile salt of Urine and the fixt of the same Liquor which as I noted is not unlike sea-salt but that it self argues a manifest Difference betwixt the salts since such a Volatile salt is not wont to Unite thus with an ordinary Alcali but to fly away from it in the Heat And on this occasion I remember that to give some of my Friends an Ocular proof of the difference betwixt the fixt and Volatile salt of the same Concrete Wood I devis'd the following Experiment I took common Venetian sublimate and dissolv'd as much of it as I well could in fair Water then I took Wood Ashes and pouring on them Warme Water Dissolv'd their salt and filtrating the Water as soon as I found the Lixivium sufficiently sharp upon the tongue I reserv'd it for use Then on part of the former solution of sublimate dropping a little of this Dissolv'd Fixt salt of Wood the Liquors presently turn'd of an Orange Colour but upon the other part of the clear solution of sublimate putting some of the Volatile salt of Wood which abounds in the spirit of soot the Liquor immediately turn'd white almost like Milke and after a while let fall a white sediment as the other Liquor did a Yellow one To all this that I have said concerning the Difference of salts Aliquando oleum Cinnamomi c. suo sali Alcali miscetur absque omni aqua trium mensium Artificiosa occultaque circulatione totum in salem volatilem commutatum est Helmont Tria Prima Chymicorum c. pag. 412. I might add what I Formerly told you concerning the simple spirit of Box and such like Woods which differ much from the other salts hitherto mention'd and yet would belong to the saline Principle if Chymists did truly teach that all Tasts proceed from it And I might also annex what I noted to you out of Helmont concerning Bodies which though they consist in great part of Chymical Oyles do yet appear but Volatile salts But to insist on these things were to repeat and therefore I shall proceed This Disparity is also highly eminent in the separated sulphurs or Chymical Oyles of things For they contain so much of the scent and tast and vertues of the Bodies whence they were drawn that they seem to be but the Material Crasis if I may so speak of their Concretes Thus the Oyles of Cinnamon Cloves Nutmegs and other spices seem to be but the United Aromatick parts that did ennoble those Bodies And 't is a known thing that Oyl of Cinnamon and oyle of Cloves which I have likewise observ'd in the Oyles of several Woods will sink to the Bottom of Water whereas those of Nutmegs and divers other Vegetables will swim upon it The Oyle abusively call'd spirit of Roses swims at the Top of the Water in the forme of a white butter which I remember not to have observ'd in any other Oyle drawn in any Limbeck yet there is a way not here to be declar'd by which I have seen it come over in the forme of other Aromatick Oyles to the Delight and Wonder of those that beheld it In Oyle of Anniseeds which I drew both with and without Fermentation I observ'd the whole Body of the Oyle in a coole place to thicken into the Consistence and Appearance of white Butter which with the least heat resum'd its Former Liquidness In the Oyl of Olive drawn over in a Retort I have likewise more then once seen a spontaneous Coagulation in the Receiver And I have of it by me thus Congeal'd which is of such a strangely Penetrating scent as if 't would Perforate the Noses that approach it The like pungent Odour I also observ'd in the Distill'd Liquor of common sope which forc'd over from Minium lately afforded an oyle of a most admirable Penetrancy And he must be a great stranger both to the Writings and preparations of Chymists that sees not in the Oyles they distill from Vegetables and Animals a considerable and obvious Difference Nay I shall venture to add Eleutherius what perhaps you will think of kin to a Paradox that divers times out of the same Animal or Vegetable there may be extracted Oyles of Natures obviously differing To which purpose I shall not insist on the swimming and sinking Oyles which I have sometimes observ'd to float on and subside under the spirit of Guajacum and that of divers other Vegetables Distill'd with a strong and lasting Fire Nor shall I insist on the observation elsewhere mention'd of the divers and unminglable oyles afforded us by Humane Blood long fermented and Digested with spirit of Wine because these kind of oyles may seem chiefly to differ in Consistence and Weight being all of them high colour'd and adust But the Experiment which I devis'd to make out this Difference of the oyles of the same Vegetable ad Oculum as they speak was this that followes I took a pound of Annis-seeds and having grosly beaten them caused them to be put into a very large glass Retort almost filled with fair Water and placing this Retort in a sand Furnace I caus'd a very Gentle heat to be administer'd during the first day and a great part of the second till the VVater was for the most part drawn off and had brought over with it at least most of the Volatile and Aromatick Oyle of the seeds And then encreasing the Fire and changing the Receiver I obtain'd besides an Empyreumatical Spirit a quantity of adust oyle whereof a little floated upon the Spirit and the rest was more heavy and not easily separable from it And whereas these oyles were very dark and smell'd as Chymists speak so strongly of the Fire that their Odour did not betray from what Vegetables they had been forc'd the other Aromatick Oyle was enrich'd with the genuine smell and tast of the Concrete and spontaneously coagulating it self into white butter did manifest self to be the true Oyle of Annisseeds which Concrete I therefore chose to employ about this Experiment that the Difference of these Oyles might be more conspicuous then it would have been had I instead of it destill'd another Vegetable I had almost forgot to take notice that there is another sort of Bodies which though not obtain'd from Concretes by Distillation many Chymists are wont to call their Sulphur not only because such substances are for the most part high colour'd whence they are also and that more properly called Tinctures as dissolv'd Sulphurs are wont to be but especially because they are for the most part abstracted and separated from the rest of the Masse by Spirit of Wine which Liquor those men supposing to be Sulphureous they conclude that what it works upon and abstracts must be a Sulphur also And upon this account they presume that they can sequester the sulphur even of Minerals and Metalls from which 't is known that they cannot by Fire alone separate it To all This I shall answer
exquisite simplicity They pretend also to be able by the Fire to divide all Concretes Minerals and others into the same number of Distinct Substances And in the mean time I must think it improbable that they can either truly separate as many differing Bodies from Gold for Instance or Osteocolla as we can do from Wine or Vitriol or that the Mercury for Example of Gold or Saturn would be perfectly of the same Nature with that of Harts-horn and that the sulphur of Antimony would be but Numerically different from the Distill'd butter or oyle of Roses But suppose sayes Eleutherius that you should meet with Chymists who would allow you to take in Earth and Water into the number of the principles of Mixt Bodies and being also content to change the Ambiguous Name of Mercury for that more intelligible one of spirit should consequently make the principles of Compound Bodies to be Five would you not think it something hard to reject so plausible an Opinion only because the Five substances into which the Fire divides mixt Bodies are not exactly pure and Homogeneous For my part Continues Carneades I cannot but think it somewhat strange in case this Opinion be not true that it should fall out so luckily that so great a Variety of Bodies should be Analyz'd by the Fire into just five Distinct substances which so little differing from the Bodies that bear those names may so Plausibly be call'd Oyle Spirit Salt Water and Earth The Opinion You now propose answers Carneades being another then that I was engag'd to examine it is not requisite for me to Debate it at present nor should I have leisure to do it thorowly Wherefore I shall only tell you in General that though I think this Opinion in some respects more defensible then that of the Vulgar Chymists yet you may easily enough learn from the past Discourse what may be thought of it Since many of the Objections made against the Vulgar Doctrine of the Chymists seem without much alteration employable against this Hypothesis also For besides that this Doctrine does as well as the other take it for granted what is not easie to be prov'd that the Fire is the true and Adequate Analyzer of Bodies and that all the Distinct substances obtainable from a mixt Body by the Fire were so pre-existent in it that they were but extricated from each other by the Analysis Besides that this Opinion too ascribe to the Productions of the Fire an Elementary simplicity which I have shewn not to belong to them and besides that this Doctrine is lyable to some of the other Difficulties wherewith That of the Tria Prima is incumber'd Besides all this I say this quinary number of Elements if you pardon the Expression ought at least to have been restrain'd to the Generality of Animal and Vegetable Bodies since not only among these there are some Bodies as I formerly argu'd which for ought has yet been made to appear do consist either of fewer or more similar substances then precisely Five But in the Mineral Kingdom there is scarce one Concrete that has been evinc'd to be adequatly divisible into such five Principles or Elements and neither more nor less as this Opinion would have every mixt Body to consist of And this very thing continues Carneades may serve to take away or lessen your Wonder that just so many Bodies as five should be found upon the Resolution of Concretes For since we find not that the fire can make any such Analysis into five Elements of Metals and other Mineral Bodies whose Texture is more strong and permanent it remains that the Five Substances under consideration be Obtain'd from Vegetable and Animal Bodies which probably by reason of their looser Contexture are capable of being Distill'd And as to such Bodies 't is natural enough that whether we suppose that there are or are not precisely five Elements there should ordinarily occurr in the Dissipated parts a five Fold Diversity of Scheme if I may so speak For if the Parts do not remain all fix'd as in Gold Calcin'd Talck c. nor all ascend as in the Sublimation of Brimstone Camphire c. but after their Dissipation do associate themselves into new Schemes of Matter it is very likely that they will by the Fire be divided into fix'd and Volatile I mean in Reference to that degree of heat by which they are destill'd and those Volatile parts will for the most part ascend either in a dry forme which Chymists are pleas'd to call if they be Tastless Flowers if Sapid Volatile Salt or in a Liquid Forme And this Liquor must be either inflamable and so pass for oyl or not inflamable and yet subtile and pungent which may be call'd Spirit or else strengthless or insipid which may be nam'd Phlegme or Water And as for the fixt part or Caput Mortuum it will most commonly consist of Corpuscles partly Soluble in Water or Sapid especially if the Saline parts were not so Volatile as to fly away before which make up its fixt salt and partly insoluble and insipid which therefore seems to challenge the name of Earth But although upon this ground one might easily enough have foretold that the differing substances obtain'd from a perfectly mixt Body by the Fire would for the most part be reducible to the five newly mentioned States of Matter yet it will not presently follow that these five Distinct substances were simple and primogeneal bodies so pre-existent in the Concrete that the fire does but take them asunder Besides that it does not appear that all Mixt Bodies witness Gold Silver Mercury c. Nay nor perhaps all Vegetables which may appear by what we said above of Camphire Benzoin c. are resoluble by Fire into just such differing Schemes of Matter Nor will the Experiments formerly alledg'd permit us to look upon these separated Substances as Elementary or uncompounded Neither will it be a sufficient Argument of their being Bodies that deserve the Names which Chymists are pleas'd to give them that they have an Analogy in point of Consistence or either Volatility or Fixtness or else some other obvious Quality with the suppos'd Principles whose names are ascrib'd to them For as I told you above notwithstanding this Resemblance in some one Quality there may be such a Disparity in others as may be more fit to give them Differing Appellations then the Resemblance is to give them one and the same And indeed it seems but somewhat a gross Way of judging of the Nature of Bodies to conclude without Scruple that those must be of the same Nature that agree in some such General Quality as Fluidity Dryness Volatility and the like since each of those Qualities or States of Matter may Comprehend a great Variety of Bodies otherwise of a very differing Nature as we may see in the Calxes of Gold of Vitriol and of Venetian Talck compar'd with common Ashes which yet are very dry and fix'd by the vehemence
of the Fire as well as they And as we may likewise gather from what I have formerly Observ'd touching the Spirit of Box-Wood which though a Volatile Sapid and not inflamable Liquor as well as the Spirits of Harts-horn of Blood and others and therefore has been hitherto call'd the Spirit and esteem'd for one of the Principles of the Wood that affords it may yet as I told You be subdivided into two Liquors differing from one another and one of them at least from the Generality of other Chymical Spirits But you may your self if you please pursues Carneades accommodate to the Hypothesis you propos'd what other particulars you shall think applicable to it in the foregoing Discourse For I think it unseasonable for me to meddle now any further with a Controversie which since it does not now belong to me Leaves me at Liberty to Take my Own time to Declare my Self about it Eleutherius perceiving that Carneades was somewhat unwilling to spend any more time upon the debate of this Opinion and having perhaps some thoughts of taking hence a Rise to make him Discourse it more fully another time thought not fit as then to make any further mention to him of the propos'd opinion but told him I presume I need not mind you Carneades That both the Patrons of the ternary number of Principles and those that would have five Elements endeavour to back their experiments with a specious Reason or two and especially some of those Embracers of the Opinion last nam'd whom I have convers'd with and found them Learned men assigne this Reason of the necessity of five distinct Elements that otherwise mixt Bodies could not be so compounded and temper'd as to obtain a due consistence and competent Duration For Salt say they is the Basis of Solidity and Permanency in Compound Bodies without which the other four Elements might indeed be variously and loosly blended together but would remain incompacted but that Salt might be dissolv'd into minute Parts and convey'd to the other Substances to be compacted by it and with it there is a Necessity of Water And that the mixture may not be too hard and brittle a Sulphureous or Oyly Principle must intervene to make the mass more tenacious to this a Mercurial spirit must be superadded which by its activity may for a while premeate and as it were leaven the whole Mass and thereby promote the more exquisite mixture and incorporation of the Ingredients To all which lastly a portion of Earth must be added which by its drinesse and poracity may soak up part of that water wherein the Salt was dissolv'd and eminently concurr with the other ingredients to give the whole body the requisite consistence I perceive sayes Carneades smiling that if it be true as 't was lately rooted from the Proverb That good Wits have bad Memories You have that Title as well as a better to a place among the good Wits For you have already more then once forgot that I declar'd to you that I would at this Conference Examine only the Experiments of my Adversaries not their Speculative Reasons Yet 't is not Subjoynes Carneades for fear of medling with the Argument you have propos'd that I decline the examining it at present For if when we are more at leasure you shall have a mind that we may Solemnly consider of it together I am confident we shall scarce find it insoluble And in the mean time we may observe that such a way of Arguing may it seems be speciously accommodated to differing Hypotheses For I find that Beguinus and other Assertors of the Tria Prima pretend to make out by such a way the requisiteness of their Salt Sulphur and Mercury to constitute mixt Bodies without taking notice of any necessity of an Addition of Water and Earth And indeed neither sort of Chymists seem to have duly consider'd how great Variety there is in the Textures and Consistences of Compound Bodie sand how little the consistence and Duration of many of them seem to accommodate and be explicable by the propos'd Notion And not to mention those almost incorruptible Substances obtainable by the Fire which I have prov'd to be somewhat compounded and which the Chymists will readily grant not to be perfectly mixt Bodies Not to mention these I say If you will but recall to mind some of those Experiments whereby I shew'd You that out of common Water only mixt Bodies and even living ones of very differing consistences and resoluble by Fire into as many Principles as other bodies acknowledg'd to be perfectly mixt if you do this I say you will not I suppose be averse from beleeving that Nature by a convenient disposition of the minute parts of a portion of matter may contrive bodies durable enough and of this or that or the other Consistence without being oblig'd to make use of all much less of any Determinate quantity of each of the five Elements or of the three Principles to compound such bodies of And I have pursues Carneades something wonder'd Chymists should not consider that there is scarce any body in Nature so permanent and indissoluble as Glass which yet themselves teach us may be made of bare Ashes brought to fusion by the meer Violence of the Fire so that since Ashes are granted to consist but of pure Salt and simple Earth sequestred from all the other Principles or Elements they must acknowledge That even Art it self can of two Elements only or if you please one Principle and one Element compound a Body more durable then almost any in the World Which being undeniable how will they prove that Nature cannot compound Mixt Bodies and even durable Ones under all the five Elements or material Principles But to insist any longer on this Occasional Disquisition Touching their Opinion that would Establish five Elements were to remember as little as You did before that the Debate of this matter is no part of my first undertaking and consequently that I have already spent time enough in what I look back upon but as a digression or at best an Excursion And thus Eleutherius sayes Carneades having at length gone through the four Considerations I propos'd to Discourse unto you I hold it not unfit for fear my having insisted so long on each of them may have made you forget their Series briefly to repeat them by telling you that Since in the first place it may justly be doubted whether or no the Fire be as Chymists suppose it the genuine and Universal Resolver of mixt Bodies Since we may doubt in the next place whether or no all the Distinct Substances that may be obtain'd from a mixt body by the Fire were pre-existent there in the formes in which they were separated from it Since also though we should grant the Substances separable from mixt Bodies by the fire to have been their component Ingredients yet the Number of such substances does not appear the same in all mixt Bodies some of them being
Other bodies that are counted perfectly Mixt. And we see that the Extracts made either with Water or Spirit of Wine are not of a simple and Elementary Nature but Masses consisting of the looser Corpuseles and finer parts of the Concretes whence they are Drawn since by Distillation they may be Divided into more Elementary substances Next we may consider That even when there intervenes a Chymical resolution by he Fire 't is seldom in the Saline or Sulphureous principle as such that the desir'd Faculty of the Concrete Resides But as that Titular Salt or Sulphur is yet a mixt body though the Saline or Sulphureous Nature be predominant in it For if in Chymical Resolutions the separated Substances were pure and simple Bodies and of a perfect Elementary Nature no one would be indued with more Specifick Vertues than another and their qualities would Differ as Little as do those of Water And let me add this upon the bye That even Eminent Chymists have suffer'd themselves to be reprehended by me for their over great Diligence in purifying some of the things they obtain by Fire from mixt Bodies For though such compleatly purifyed Ingredients of Bodies might perhaps be more satisfactory to our Understanding yet others are often more useful to our Lives the efficacy of such Chymical Productions depending most upon what they retain of the Bodies whence they are separated or gain by the new associations of the Dissipated among themselves whereas if they were meerly Elementary their uses would be comparatively very small and the vertues of Sulphurs Salts or Other such Substances of one denomination would be the very same And by the Way Eleutherius I am inclin'd upon this ground to Think That the artificial resolution of compound bodies by Fire does not so much enrich mankind as it divides them into their supposed Principles as upon the score of its making new compounds by new combinations of the dissipated parts of the resolv'd Body For by this means the Number of mixt Bodies is considerably increased And many of those new productions are indow'd with useful qualities divers of which they owe not to the body from which they were obtein'd but to Their newly Acquired Texture But thirdly that which is principally to be Noted is this that as there are divers Concretes whose Faculties reside in some one or other of those differing Substances that Chymists call their Sulphurs Salts and Mercuries and consequently may be best obtain'd by analyzing the Concrete whereby the desired Principles may be had sever'd or freed from the rest So there are other wherein the noblest properties lodge not in the Salt or Sulphur or Mercury but depend immediately upon the form or if you will result from the determinate structure of the Whole Concrete and consequently they that go about to extract the Vertues of such bodies by exposing them to the Violence of the Fire do exceedingly mistake and take the way to Destroy what they would obtain I remmember that Helmont himself somewhere confesses That as the Fire betters some things and improves their Vertues so it spoyles others and makes them degenerate And elsewhere he judiciously affirmes that there may be sometimes greater vertue in a simple such as Nature has made it than in any thing that can by the fire be separated from it Helm out Pharm Dispens Nov. p. 438. And lest you should doubt whether he means by the vertues of things those that are Medical he has in one place this ingenuous confession Credo sayes he simplicia in sua simplicitate esse sufficientia pro sanatione omnium morborum Nag Barthias even in a Comment upon Beguinus Vide Jer. ad Begu Lib. 1. Cap. 17. scruples not to make this acknowledgment Valde absurdum est sayes he ex omnibus rebus extracta facere salia quintas essentias praesertim ex substantiis per se plane vel subtilibus vel homogeneis quales sunt uniones Corallia Moscus Ambra c. Consonantly whereunto he also tells Us and Vouches the famous Platerus for having candidly given the same Advertisement to his Auditors that some things have greater vertues and better suited to our humane nature when unprepar'd than when they have past the Chymists Fire as we see sayes my Author in Pepper of which some grains swallowed perform more towards the relief of a Distempered stomack than a great quantity of the Oyle of the same spice It has been pursues Carneades by our Friend here present observ'd concerning Salt-petre that none of the substances into which the Fire is wont to divide it retaines either the Tast the cooling vertue or some other of the properties of the Concrete and that each of those Substances acquires new qualities not to be found in the Salt-Petre it self The shining property of the tayls of gloworms does survive but so short a time the little animal made conspicuous by it that inquisitive men have not scrupled publickly to deride Baptista Porta and others who deluded perhaps with some Chymical surmises have ventur'd to prescribe the distillation of a Water from the tayles of Glowormes as a sure way to obtain a liquor shining in the Dark To which I shall now add no other example than that afforded us by Amber which whilst it remains an intire body is endow'd with an Electrical faculty of drawing to it self fethers strawes and such like Bodies which I never could observe either in its Salt its Spirit its Oyle or in the Body I remember I once made by the reunion of its divided Elements none of these having such a Texture as the intire Goncrete And however Chymists boldly deduce such and such properties from this or that proportion of their component Principles yet in Concretes that abound with this or that Ingredient 't is not alwayes so much by vertue of its presence nor its plenty that the Concrete is qualify'd to perform such and such Effects as upon the account of the particular texture of that and the other Ingredients associated after a determinate Manner into one Concrete though possibly such a proportion of that ingredient may be more convenient than an other for the constituting of such a body Thus in a clock the hand is mov'd upon the dyal the bell is struck and the other actions belonging to the engine are perform'd not because the Wheeles are of brass or iron or part of one metal and part of another or because the weights are of Lead but by Vertue of the size shape bigness and co-aptation of the several parts which would performe the same things though the wheels were of Silver or Lead or Wood and the Weights of Stone or Clay provided the Fabrick or Contrivance of the engine were the same though it be not to be deny'd that Brasse and Steel are more convenient materials to make clock-wheels of than Lead or Wood. And to let you see Eleutherius that 't is sometimes at least upon the Texture of the small parts of a
and melt it in the Fire to free it from the aqueous parts and afterward distill it with a vehement Fire from burnt Clay or any other as dry a Caput mortuum as you please you will as Chymists confess by teaching it drive over a good part of the Salt in the form of a Liquor And to satisfy some ingenious men That a great part of this Liquor was still true sea salt brought by the Operation of the Fire into Corpuscles so small and perhaps so advantageously shap'd as to be capable of the forme of a Fluid Body He did in my presence poure to such spititual salts a due proportion of the spirit or salt and Phlegme of Urine whereby having evaporated the superfluous moisture he soon obtain'd such another Concrete both as to tast and smell and easie sublimableness as common Salt Armoniack which you know is made up of grosse and undistill'd sea salt united with the salts of Urine and of Soot which two are very neer of kin to each other And further to manifest that the Corpuscles of sea salt and the Saline ones of Urine retain their several Natures in this Concrete He mixt it with a convenient quantity of Salt of Tartar and committing it to Distillation soon regain'd his spirit of Urine in a liquid form by its self the Sea salt staying behind with the Salt of Tartar Wherefore it is very possible that dry Bodies may by the Fire be reduc'd to Liquors without any separation of Elements but barely by a certain kind of Dissipation and Comminution of the matter whereby its parts are brought into a new state And if it be still objected that the Phlegme of mixt Bodies must be reputed water because so weak a tast needs but a very small proportion of Salt to impart it It may be reply'd that for ought appears common Salt and divers other bodies though they be distill'd never so dry and in never so close Vessels will yield each of them pretty store of a Liquor wherein though as I lately noted Saline Corpuscles abound Yet there is besides a large proportion of Phlegme as may easily be discovered by coagulating the Saline Corpuseles with any convenient Body as I lately told you our Friend coagulated part of the Spirit of Salt with Spirit of Urine and as I have divers times separated a salt from Oyle of Vitriol it self though a very ponderous Liquor and drawn from a saline body by boyling it with a just quantity of Mercury and then washing the newly coagulated salt from the Precipitate with fair Water Now to what can we more probably ascribe this plenty of aqueous Substance afforded us by the Distillation of such bodies than unto this That among the various operations of the Fire upon the matter of a Concrete divers particles of that matter are reduc'd to such a shape and bignesse as is requisite to compose such a Liquor as Chymists are wont to call Phlegme or Water How I conjecture this change may be effected 't is neither necessary for me to tell you nor possible to do so without a much longer discourse then were now seasonable But I desire you would with me reflect upon what I formerly told you conterning the change of Quicksilver into Water For that Water having but a very faint tast if any whit more than divers of those liquors that Chymists referr to Phlegme By that experiment it seems evident that even a metalline body and therefore much more such as are but Vegetable or Animal may by a simple operation of the Fire be turn'd in great part into Water And since those I dispute with are not yet able out of Gold or Silver or divers other Concretes to separate any thing like Water I hope I may be allow'd to conclude against Them that water it self is not an Universal and pre-existent Ingredient of Mixt Bodies But as for those Chymists that Supposing with me the Truth of what Helmont relates of the Alkahest's wonderful Effects have a right to press me with his Authority concerning them and to alledge that he could Transmute all reputedly mixt Bodies into insipid and meer Water To those I shall represent That though his Affirmations conclude strongly against the Vulgar Chymists against whom I have not therefore scrupl'd to Employ Them since they Evince that the Commonly reputed Principles or Ingredients of Things are not Permanent and indestructible since they may be further reduc'd into Insipid Phlegme differing from them all Yet till we can be allow'd to examine this Liquor I think it not unreasonable to doubt whether it be not something else then meer Water For I find not any other reason given by Helmont of his Pronouncing it so then that it is insipid Now Sapour being an Accident or an Affection of matter that relates to our Tongue Palate and other Organs of Tast it may very possibly be that the small Parts of a Body may be of such a Size and Shape as either by their extream Littleness or by their slenderness or by their Figure to be unable to pierce into and make a perceptible Impression upon the Nerves or Membranous parts of the Organs of Tast and what may be fit to work otherwise upon divers other Bodies than meer Water can and consequently to Disclose it self to be of a Nature farr enough from Elementary In Silke dyed Red or of any other Colour whilst many Contiguous Threads makes up a skein the Colour of the Silke is conspicuous but if only a very few of them be lookt upon the Colour will appear much fainter then before But if You take out one simple Thread you shall not easily be able to discern any Colour at all So subtile an Object having not the Force to make upon the Optick Nerve an Impression great enough to be taken Notice of It is also observ'd that the best sort of Oyl-Olive is almost tastless and yet I need not tell you how exceedingly distant in Nature Oyle is from VVater The Liquor into which I told you upon the Relation of Lully and Eye-witness that Mercury might be Transmuted has sometimes but a very Languid if any Tast and yet its Operations even upon some Mineral Bodies are very peculiar Quicksilver it self also though the Corpuscles it consists of be so very small as to get into the Pores of that Closest and compactest of Bodies Gold is yet you know altogether Tastless And our Helmont several times tells us that fair Water wherein a little Quantity f Quicksilver has lain for some time though it acquire no certain Tast or other sensible Quality from the Quicksilver Yet it has a power to destroy wormes in humane Bodies which he does much but not causelessly extoll And I remember a great Lady that had been Eminent for her Beauty in Divers Courts confess'd to me that this insipid Liquor was of all innocent washes for the Face the best that she ever met with And here let me conclude my Discourse concerning such waters
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
of inserting them it is thought fit that the Printer give notice of one Omission at the End of the first Dialogue and that to these Errata there be annex'd the ensuing sheet of Paper that was casually lost or forgotten by him that should have put it into the Presse where it ought to have been inserted in the 187. printed Page at the break betwixt the words Nature in the 13th line and But in the next line after Though it is to be noted here that by the mistake of the Printer in some Books the number of 187 is placed at the top of two somewhat distant pages and in such copies the following addition ought to be inserted in the latter of the two as followeth And on this occasion I cannot but take notice that whereas the great Argument which the Chymists are wont to employ to vilify Earth and Water and make them be look'd upon as useless and unworthy to be reckon'd among the Principles of Mixt Bodies is that they are not endow'd with Specifick Properties but only with Elementary qualities of which they use to speak very sleightingly as of qualities contemptible and unactive I see no sufficient Reason for this Practice of the Chymists For 't is confess'd that Heat is an Elementary Quality and yet that an almost innumerable company of confiderable Things are perform'd by Heat is manifest to them that duly consider the various Phaenomena wherein it intervenes as a principall Actor and none ought less to ignore or distrust this Truth then a Chymist Since almost all the operations and Productions of his Art are performed chiefly by the means of Heat And as for Cold it self upon whose account they so despise the Earth and Water if they please to read in the Voyages of our English and Dutch Navigators in Nova Zembla and other Northern Regions what stupendious Things may be effected by Cold they would not perhaps think it so despicable And not to repeat what I lately recited to You out of Paracelsus himself who by the help of an intense Cold teaches to separate the Quintessence of Wine I will only now observe to You that the Conservation of the Texture of many Bodies both animate and inanimate do's so much depend upon the convenient motion both of their own Fluid and Looser Parts and of the ambient Bodies whether Air Water c. that not only in humane Bodies we see that the immoderate or unseasonable coldness of the Air especially when it finds such Bodies everheated do's very frequently discompose the Oeconomie of them and occasion variety of Diseases but in the solid and durable Body of Iron it self in which one would not expect that suddain Cold should produce any notable change it may have so great an operation that if you take a Wire or other slender piece of steel and having brought it in the fire to a white heat You suffer it afterwards to cool leasurely in the Air it will when it is cold be much of the same hardnesse it was of before Whereas if as soon as You remove it from the fire you plunge it into cold water it will upon the sudden Refrigeration acquire a very much greater hardness then it had before Nay and will become manifestly brittle And that you may not impute this to any peculiar Quality in the Water or other Liquor or Unctuous matter wherein such heated steel is wont to be quenched that it may be temper'd I know a very skillful Tradesman that divers times hardens steel by suddenly cooling it in a Body that is neither a liquor nor so much as moist A tryal of that Nature I remember I have seen made And however by the operation that Water has upon steel quenched in it whether upon the Account of its coldness and moisture or upon that of any other of its qualities it appears that water is not alwaies so inefficacious and contemptible a Body as our Chymists would have it passe for And what I have said of the Efficacy of Cold and Heat might perhaps be easily enough carried further by other considerations and experiments were it not that having been mention'd only upon the Bye I must not insist on it but proceed to another Subject ERRATA PAg. 5. line 6. read so qualify'd 15.19 Ratiocinations 25.15 for a 33.17 in a parenth that is no more 51.24 besides another Caput 79.10 employ 86.13 structure 97.13 Sack ibid. 22. Sack 104.29 instead of appear it will leg appear it will 118.20 leasure ibid. principal 126.20 and till it suffer 129. 3 leg in parenth notwithstanding c. 131.15 so 144.15 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 151.5 nor have been resolved 180.25 Magistram 185.15 lately 188.15 tunned 200.1 intolerable ibid. 2. in 209 21. tegularum 210.7 distill'd from 215.25 dele the 220.1 bodies 228.11 fugitive 231.17 instead of all lege a pound 237.6 Chymist 248.18 Ashes off 251. 23 Deopilative 259.6 it self 269.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 276.25 make a parenth at the words by the and shut it after the words in the 27. line at all 280.11 Corals 288.6 ascribes 294 22. poresity ibid 28. noted 296.1 Bodies 305.8 attended 307.12 dele to 308.12 devisers 312 14. and 313.3 too 314.24 fugitivenesse 333.13 origine ibid. 24. contrivance of 339.1 Nay Barthias 142.3 in I will 350.26 absurd 356.11 Goutieres 358.6 antea 360.1 compertissimum ibid 18. Joachimica ibid. 19. graminis ibid. 23. sua 362 6. Dutch account 363.2 diggers ibid 11. and 12. lin read damp as the Englishmen also call it 366.25 a height 368.19 in use 370.9 latter And ibid. 24. Water J 377.22 Rest ibid. 25. know 378.23 after Aggregate insert or complex ibid 27. dele ibid 28. dele 379.4 before as begin a parenth which ends lin 9. at Gold ibid. instead of Which put This ibid. 12. with the word Texture should be connected the next line Though and this word Though is to have put before it a parenthesis which is to end at the word Fluid in the 16th line 383 3. Regulus Martis Stellatus 382.3 Relations ibid 9. Chymist 386.29 confesse by teaching it 391.8 and yet may 392.1 an ibid. 12. of 393. distinct Tasts 397.13 Talck 398.18 Earth 399.18 parts 404.8 sal-petrae 419.20 after it put in Sal. The Publisher doth advertise the Reader that seeing there are divers Experiments related in this Treatise which the Author is not unwilling to submit to the consideration also of Forraign Philosophers he believes this piece will be very soon translated into Latin END