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 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,
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