Part 3

I consider then (sayes Carneades) in the next place, that there are divers Bodies out of which Themistius will not prove in haste, that there can be so many Elements as four extracted by the Fire. And I should perchance trouble him if I should ask him what Peripatetick can shew us, (I say not, all the four Elements, for that would be too rigid a Question, but) any one of them extracted out of Gold by any degree of Fire whatsoever. Nor is Gold the only Bodie in Nature that would puzzle an Aristotelian, that is no more [Errata: (that is no more)] to analyze by the Fire into Elementary Bodies, since, for ought I have yet observ'd, both Silver and calcin'd Venetian Talck, and some other Concretes, not necessary here to be nam'd, are so fixt, that to reduce any of them into four Heterogeneous Substances has hitherto prov'd a Task much too hard, not only for the Disciples of Aristotle, but those of Vulcan, at least, whilst the latter have employ'd only Fire to make the Analysis.

The next Argument (continues Carneades) that I shall urge against Themistius's Opinion shall be this, That as there are divers Bodies whose Analysis by Fire cannot reduce them into so many Heterogeneous Substances or Ingregredients [Transcriber's Note: Ingredients] as four, so there are others which may be reduc'd into more, as the Blood (and divers other parts) of Men and other Animals, which yield when analyz'd five distinct Substances, Phlegme, Spirit, Oyle, Salt and Earth, as Experience has shewn us in distilling Mans Blood, Harts-Horns, and divers other Bodies that belonging to the Animal-Kingdom abound with not uneasily sequestrable Salt.

THE

SCEPTICAL CHYMIST:

CHYMICO-PHYSICAL

Doubts & Paradoxes,

Touching the

EXPERIMENTS

WHEREBY

VULGAR SPAGYRISTS

Are wont to Endeavour to Evince their

SALT, SULPHUR

AND

MERCURY,

TO BE

The True Principles of Things.

Utinam jam tenerentur omnia, & inoperta ac confessa Veritas esset! Nihil ex Decretis mutaremus. Nunc Veritatem cum eis qui docent, quaerimus. Sen.

LONDON,

Printed for J. Crooke, and are to be sold at the Ship in St. Pauls Church-Yard. 1661.

THE

SCEPTICAL CHYMIST.

The First Part.

I am (sayes Carneades) so unwilling to deny Eleutherius any thing, that though, before the rest of the Company I am resolv'd to make good the part I have undertaken of a Sceptick; yet I shall readily, since you will have it so, lay aside for a while the Person of an Adversary to the Peripateticks and Chymists; and before I acquaint you with my Objections against their Opinions, acknowledge to you what may be (whether truly or not) tollerably enough added, in favour of a certain number of Principles of mixt Bodies, to that grand and known Argument from the Analysis of compound Bodies, which I may possibly hereafter be able to confute.

And that you may the more easily Examine, and the better Judge of what I have to say, I shall cast it into a pretty number of distinct Propositions, to which I shall not premise any thing; because I take it for granted, that you need not be advertis'd, that much of what I am to deliver, whether for or against a determinate number of Ingredients of mix'd Bodies, may be indifferently apply'd to the four Peripatetick Elements, and the three Chymical Principles, though divers of my Objections will more peculiarly belong to these last nam'd, because the Chymical Hypothesis seeming to be much more countenanc'd by Experience then the other, it will be expedient to insist chiefly upon the disproving of that; especially since most of the Arguments that are imploy'd against it, may, by a little variation, be made to conclude, at least as strongly against the less plausible, Aristotelian Doctrine.

To proceed then to my Propositions, I shall begin with this. That

It seems not absurd to conceive that at the first Production of mixt Bodies, the Universal Matter whereof they among other Parts of the Universe consisted, was actually divided into little Particles of several sizes and shapes variously mov'd.

This (sayes Carneades) I suppose you will easily enough allow. For besides that which happens in the Generation, Corruption, Nutrition, and wasting of Bodies, that which we discover partly by our Microscopes of the extream littlenesse of even the scarce sensible parts of Concretes; and partly by the Chymical Resolutions of mixt Bodies, and by divers other Operations of Spagyrical Fires upon them, seems sufficiently to manifest their consisting of parts very minute and of differing Figures. And that there does also intervene a various local Motion of such small Bodies, will scarce be denied; whether we chuse to grant the Origine of Concretions assign'd by Epicurus, or that related by Moses. For the first, as you well know, supposes not only all mixt Bodies, but all others to be produc'd by the various and casual occursions of Atomes, moving themselves to and fro by an internal Principle in the Immense or rather Infinite Vacuum. And as for the inspir'd Historian, He, informing us that the great and Wise Author of Things did not immediately create Plants, Beasts, Birds, &c. but produc'd them out of those portions of the pre-existent, though created, Matter, that he calls Water and Earth, allows us to conceive, that the constituent Particles whereof these new Concretes were to consist, were variously moved in order to their being connected into the Bodies they were, by their various Coalitions and Textures, to compose.

But (continues Carneades) presuming that the first Proposition needs not be longer insisted on, I will pass on to the second, and tell you that