Part 9

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, 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 Water; 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 Water, 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 Water, notwithstanding [Errata: (notwithstanding] the Saline, Terrestrial, and other Bodies mingl'd with it,) such a Liquor may well enough be called Water, 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 a principle or Element before.

And having thus, _Eleutherius_, Evinc'd that 'tis 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 Fætid, and of a very Differing Quality from that which was Employ'd to make the Sope: fo [Errata: 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 Water, and which a Vulgar Chymist would not scruple to 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 Water; 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 _Alkahest_ 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 'twere 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 itself, 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 [Transcriber's Note: Fire], or Air, or Water, or Earth.

Nor indeed can I well understand, how Bodies can be mingl'd other wayes then as I have 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 Water only; Since the Wine being added but by a Drop at a time would still Fall into nothing but Water, and Consequently would be turn'd into it. And if this would hold in Metals too, 'twere 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 Wheat, 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 [Greek: synchysis] [Errata: [Greek: Synchysis]], 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 tis 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 You will not grant to be sufficient for a true Mistion, he must have the same Quarrel with Nature her self, as with his Adversaries.

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 _Phænomena_ 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.