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 'tis 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 insects, 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
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