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The Sceptical Chymist Robert Boyle Public domain text from Project Gutenberg. E-text prepared by Robert Shimmin, Linda Cantoni, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net). Color title-page images were generously provided by the University of Pennsylvania Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text & Image (http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/sceti). Transcriber's Notes: This e-book was prepared from a facsimile of the 1661 first edition and contains spelling, capitalization, and punctuation inconsistencies typical of the era. These have been preserved as they appear in the original. Printer errors have also been preserved. Those mentioned in the Errata at the end of the book are noted with [Errata: corrected text]. Other obvious printer errors are noted with [Transcriber's Note: corrected text] where the meaning might be unclear without the correction. See also the printer's note preceding the Errata, which contains material omitted from the text (the place where it should be inserted is marked in the text with a Transcriber's Note). There are a number of sidenotes in this book, most of which function as footnotes (e.g., citations to other works) and some of which function as true sidenotes. For the sake of clarity, sidenotes functioning as footnotes have been converted to numbered footnotes, with number markers at appropriate places in the text. A character with a macron is represented by an equal sign. E.g., [=a] indicates "a" with macron. 1 A table of contents has been provided for the reader's convenience. THE SCEPTICAL CHYMIST: OR CHYMICO-PHYSICAL Doubts & Paradoxes, Touching the SPAGYRIST'S PRINCIPLES Commonly call'd HYPOSTATICAL, As they are wont to be Propos'd and Defe…

The Sceptical Chymist

Page 32 of 205, printed 32

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But to proceed to a new Proposition. [Sidenote: Propos. III.] _I shall not peremptorily deny, that from most of such mixt Bodies as partake either of Animal or Vegetable Nature, there may by the Help of the Fire, be actually obtain'd a determinate number (whether Three, Four or Five, or fewer or more) of Substances, worthy of differing Denominations._ Of the Experiments that induce me to make this Concession, I am like to have occasion enough to mention several in the prosecution of my Discourse. And therefore, that I may not hereafter be oblig'd to trouble You and my self with needless Repetitions, I shall now only desire you to take notice of such Experiments, when they shall be mention'd, and in your thoughts referre them hither. To these three Concessions I have but this Fourth to add, That [Sidenote: Propos. IV.] _It may likewise be granted, that those distinct Substances, which Concretes generally either afford or are made up of, may without very much Inconvenience be call'd the Elements or Principles of them._ When I said, _without very much Inconvenience_, I had in my Thoughts that sober Admonition of _Galen_, _Cum de re constat, de verbis non est Litigandum_. And therefore also I scruple not to say _Elements_ or _Principles_, partly because the Chymists are wont to call the Ingredients of mixt Bodies, _Principles_, as the _Aristotelians_ name them _Elements_; I would here exclude neither. And, partly, because it seems doubtfull whether the same Ingredients may not be call'd _Principles_? as not being compounded of any more primary Bodies: and _Elements_, in regard that all mix'd Bodies are compounded of them. But I thought it requisite to limit my Concession by premising the words, _very much_, to the word _Inconvenience_, because that though the Inconvenience of calling the distinct Substances, mention'd in the Proposition _Elements_ or _Principles_, be not very great, yet that it is an Impropriety of Speech, and consequently in a matter of this moment not to be altogether overlook'd, You will perhaps think, as 32

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The Sceptical Chymist