minute Bodies there seems oftentimes nothing requisite, besides the
bare Contact of a great part of their Surfaces. And how great a
variety of _Phaenomena_ the same matter, without the addition of any
other, and only several ways dispos'd or contexed, is able to exhibit,
may partly appear by the multitude of differing Engins which by the
contrivances of skilful Mechanitians, and the dexterity of expert
Workmen, may be made of Iron alone. But in our present case being
allow'd to deduce compound Bodies from four very differently qualified
sorts of matter, he who shall but consider what you freshly took
notice of concerning the new Concretes resulting from the mixture of
incorporated Minerals, will scarce doubt but that the four Elements
mannag'd by Natures Skill may afford a multitude of differing
Compounds.
I am thus far of your minde (sayes _Carneades_) that the
_Aristotelians_ might with probability deduce a much greater number of
compound Bodies from the mixture of their four Elements, than
according to their present _Hypothesis_ they can, if instead of vainly
attempting to deduce the variety and properties of all mixt Bodies
from the Combinations and Temperaments of the four Elements, as they
are (among them) endowd with the four first Qualities, they had
endeavoured to do it by the Bulk and Figure of the smallest parts of
those supposed Elements. For from these more Catholick and Fruitfull
Accidents of the Elementary matter may spring a great variety of
Textures, upon whose Account a multitude of compound Bodies may very
much differ from one another. And what I now observe touching the four
Peripatetick Elements, may be also applyed, _mutatis mutandis_, (as
they speak) to the Chymical Principles. But (to take notice of that by
the by) both the one and the other, must, I fear, call in to their
assistance something that is not Elementary, to excite or regulate the
motion of the parts of the matter, and dispose them after the manner
requisite to the Constitution of particular Concretes. For that
otherwise they are like to give us but a very imperfect account of the
Origine of very many mixt Bodies, It would, I think, be no hard matter
to perswade you, if it would not spend time, and were no Digression,
to examine, what they are wont to alledge of the Origine of the
Textures and Qualities of mixt Bodies, from a certain substantial
Form, whose Origination they leave more obscure than what it is
assum'd to explicate.
31