below, that sulphureous steams may ascend very high without any
extraordinary Degree of heat; It may be answer'd, among other things,
that the Sulphur of Silver is by Chymists said to be a fixt Sulphur,
though not altogether so well Digested as that of Gold.
But, proceeds _Carneades_, If it had not been to afford You some hints
concerning the Origine of Metals, I need not have deduc'd any thing
from these Observations; It not being necessary to the Validity of my
Argument that my Deductions from them should be irrefragable, because
my Adversaries the _Aristotelians_ and Vulgar Chymists do not, I
presume, know any better then I, _a priori_, of what ingredients
Nature compounds Metals and Minerals. For their Argument to prove that
those Bodies are made up of such Principles, is drawn _a posteriori_;
I mean from this, that upon the _Analysis_ of Mineral bodies they are
resolv'd into those differing substances. That we may therefore
examine this Argument, Let us proceed to consider what can be alledg'd
in behalf of the Elements from the Resolutions of Bodies by the fire;
which you remember was the second Tophick [Transcriber's Note: Topick]
whence I told you the Arguments of my Adversaries were desum'd.
And that I may first dispatch what I have to say concerning Minerals,
I will begin the remaining part of my discourse with considering how
the fire divides them.
And first, I have partly noted above, that though Chymists pretend
from some to draw salt, from others running Mercury, and from others a
Sulphur; Yet they have not hitherto taught us by any way in us
[Errata: use] among them to separate any one principle, whether Salt,
Sulphur, or Mercury, from all sorts of Minerals without exception. And
thence I may be allow'd to conclude that there is not any of the
Elements that is an Ingredient of all Bodies, since there are some of
which it is not so.
In the next place, supposing that either Sulphur or Mercury were
obtainable from all sorts of Minerals. Yet still this Sulphur or
Mercury would be but a compounded, not an Elementary body, as I told
you already on another occasion. And certainly he that takes notice of
the wonderful Operations of Quicksilver, whether it be common, or
drawn from Mineral Bodies, can scarce be so inconsiderate as to think
it of the very same nature with that immature and fugitive substance
171