digested on it is to separate the sulphureous from the Alcalizate
Parts, by dissolving the former and leaving the latter, the action of
Wine (probably upon the score of its copious Phlegme) upon the same
mixture is to divide it into Corpuscles consisting of both Alcalizate
and Sulphureous Parts united. And if it be objected, that this is but
a Factitious Concrete; I answer, that however the instance may serve
to illustrate what I propos'd, if not to prove it; and that Nature her
self doth in the bowels of the Earth make Decompounded Bodies, as we
see in Vitriol, Cinnaber, and even in Sulphur it self; I will not urge
that the Fire divides new Milk into five differing Substances; but
Runnet and Acid Liquors divide it into a Coagulated matter and a thin
Whey: And on the other side churning divides it into Butter and
Butter-milk, which may either of them be yet reduc'd to other
substances differing from the former. I will not presse this, I say,
nor other instances of this Nature, because I cannot in few words
answer what may be objected, that these Concretes sequestred without
the help of the Fire may by it be further divided into Hypostatical
Principles. But I will rather represent, That whereas the same spirit
of Wine will dissociare [Transcriber's Note: dissociate] the Parts of
Camphire, and make them one Liquor with it self; _Aqua Fortis_ will
also disjoyn them, and put them into motion; but so as to keep them
together, and yet alter their Texture into the form of an Oyle. I know
also an uncompounded Liquor, that an extraordinary Chymist would not
allow to be so much as Saline, which doth (as I have try'd) from Coral
it self (as fixt as divers judicious writers assert that Concrete to
be) not only obtain a noble Tincture, Without the Intervention of
Nitre or other Salts; but will carry over the Tincture in
Distillation. And if some reasons did not forbid me, I could now tell
you of a _Menstruum_ I make my self, that doth more odly dissociate
the parts of Minerals very fixt in the fire. So that it seems not
incredible, that there may be some Agent or way of Operation found,
whereby this or that Concrete, if not all Firme Bodies, may be
resolv'd into parts so very minute and so unapt to stick close to one
another, that none of them may be fixt enough to stay behind in a
strong Fire, and to be incapable of Distillation; nor consequently to
be look'd upon as Earth. But to return to _Helmont_, the same Authour
somewhere supply's me with another Argument against the Earth's being
such an Element as my Adversaries would have it. For he somewhere
affirms, that he can reduce all the Terrestrial parts of mixt bodies
into insipid water; whence we may argue against the Earths being one
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