_Menstruums_ it seems to be turn'd into a Liquor, with _Aqua fortis_
will be brought into either a red or white Powder or precipitate, with
Oyl of Vitriol into a pale Yellow one, with Sulphur it will compose a
blood-red and volatile Cinaber, with some Saline Bodies it will ascend
in form of a Salt which will be dissoluble in water; with _Regulus_ of
Antimony and Silver I have seen it sublim'd into a kinde of Crystals,
with another Mixture I reduc'd it into a malleable Body, into a hard
and brittle Substance by another: And some there are who affirm, that
by proper Additaments they can reduce Quicksilver into Oyl, nay into
Glass, to mention no more. And yet out of all these exotick Compounds,
we may recover the very same running Mercury that was the main
Ingredient of them, and was so disguis'd in them. Now the Reason
(proceeds _Carneades_) that I have represented these things concerning
Gold and Quicksilver, is, That it may not appear absurd to conceive,
that such little primary Masses or Clusters, as our Proposition
mentions, may remain undissipated, notwithstanding their entring into
the composition of various Concretions, since the Corpuscle of Gold
and Mercury, though they be not primary Concretions of the most minute
Particles or matter, but confessedly mixt Bodies, are able to concurre
plentifully to the composition of several very differing Bodies,
without losing their own Nature or Texture, or having their cohaesion
violated by the divorce of their associated parts or Ingredients.
Give me leave to add (sayes _Eleutherius_) on this occasion, to what
you now observ'd, that as confidently as some Chymists, and other
modern Innovators in Philosophy are wont to object against the
Peripateticks, That from the mixture of their four Elements there
could arise but an inconsiderable variety of compound Bodies; yet if
the _Aristotelians_ were but half as well vers'd in the works of
Nature as they are in the Writings of their Master, the propos'd
Objection would not so calmly triumph, as for want of Experiments they
are fain to suffer it to do. For if we assigne to the Corpuscles,
whereof each Element consists, a peculiar size and shape, it may
easily enough be manifested, That such differingly figur'd Corpuscles
may be mingled in such various Proportions, and may be connected so
many several wayes, that an almost incredible number of variously
qualified Concretes may be compos'd of them. Especially since the
Corpuscles of one Element may barely, by being associated among
themselves, make up little Masses of differing size and figure from
their constituent parts: and since also to the strict union of such
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