them too are such as will not perhaps be readily answer'd, and will
Reduce my Adversaries, at least, to alter and Reform their
_Hypothesis_. I perceive I need not minde you that the Objections I
made against the Quaternary of Elements and Ternary of Principles
needed not to be oppos'd so much against the Doctrines Themselves
(either of which, especially the latter, may be much more probably
maintain'd than hitherto it seems to have been, by those Writers for
it I have met with) as against the unaccurateness and the
unconcludingness of the _Analytical_ Experiments vulgarly Relyed On to
Demonstrate them.
And therefore, if either of the two examin'd Opinions, or any other
Theory of Elements, shall upon rational and Experimental grounds be
clearly made out to me; 'Tis Obliging, but not irrational, in you to
Expect, that I shall not be so farr in Love with my Disquieting
Doubts, as not to be content to change them for undoubted truths. And
(concludes _Carneades_ smiling) it were no great disparagement for a
Sceptick to confesse to you, that as unsatisfy'd as the past discourse
may have made you think me with the Doctrines of the Peripateticks,
and the Chymists, about the Elements and Principles, I can yet so
little discover what to acquiesce in, that perchance the Enquiries of
others have scarce been more unsatisfactory to me, than my own have
been to my self.
_FINIS._
* * * * *
The Authors constant Absence from the Presse, whilst the former
Treatise was Printing, and the Nature of the Subject it self,
wherewith ordinary Composers are not wont to be at all acquainted,
will, 'tis hop'd, procure the Readers Excuse, till the next Edition,
if the _Errata_ be somewhat numerous, and if among them there want not
some grosser mistakes, which yet are not the only Blemishes these
lines must take notice of and acknowledg; For the Author now perceives
that through the fault of those to whom he had committed the former
Treatise in loose Sheets, some Papers that belonged to it, have
altogether miscarryed. And though it have luckily enough happen'd, for
the most part, that the Omission of them does not marr the Cohaerence
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