above explain'd.
And before I descend to particulars, I shall repeat and premise this
General Consideration, that these differing substances that are call'd
Elements or Principles, differ not from each other as Metals, Plants
and Animals, or as such Creatures as are immediately produc'd each by
its peculiar Seed, and Constitutes a distinct propagable sort of
Creatures in the Universe; but these are only Various Schemes of
matter or Substances that differ from each other, but in consistence
(as Running Mercury and the same Metal congeal'd by the Vapor of
Lead) and some very few other accidents, as Tast, or Smel, or
Inflamability, or the want of them. So that by a change of Texture not
impossible to be wrought by the Fire and other Agents that have the
Faculty not only to dissociate the smal parts of Bodies, but
afterwards to connect them after a new manner, the same parcell of
matter may acquire or lose such accidents as may suffice to Denominate
it Salt, or Sulphur, or Earth. If I were fully to clear to you my
apprehensions concerning this matter, I should perhaps be obliged to
acquaint you with divers of the Conjectures (for I must yet call them
no more) I have had Concerning the Principles of things purely
Corporeal: For though because I seem not satisfi'd with the Vulgar
Doctrines, either of the Peripatetick or Paracelsian Schools, many of
those that know me, (and perhaps, among Them, _Eleutherius_ himself)
have thought me wedded to the Epicurean _Hypotheses_, (as others have
mistaken me for an _Helmontian_;) yet if you knew how little
Conversant I have been with _Epicurean_ Authors, and how great a part
of _Lucretius_ himself I never yet had the Curiosity to read, you
would perchance be of another mind; especially if I were to entertain
you at large, I say not, of my present Notions; but of my former
thoughts concerning the Principles of things. But, as I said above,
fully to clear my Apprehensions would require a Longer Discourse than
we can now have.
For, I should tell you that I have sometimes thought it not unfit,
that to the Principles which may be assign'd to things, as the World
is now Constituted, we should, if we consider the Great Mass of matter
as it was whilst the Universe was in making, add another, which may
Conveniently enough be call'd an Architectonick Principle or power; by
which I mean those Various Determinations, and that Skilfull Guidance
of the motions of the small parts of the Universal matter by the most
174