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, 'tis 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. 'Tis known that both
Chymists and Physitians ascribe to the fixt salts of calcin'd Bodies
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