their Colour and Situation, and that the whole body of the Coal was
reduc'd into those Liquors, both of them separable from his Immortal
_Menstruum_, which remain'd as fit for such Operations as before. And
he moreover tells us in divers places of his Writings, that by this
powerful, and unwearied Agent, he could dissolve Metals, Marchasites,
Stones, Vegetable and Animal Bodies of what kinde soever, and even
Glass it self (first reduc'd to powder,) and in a word, all kinds of
mixt Bodies in the World into their several similar Substances,
without any Residence or _Caput mortuum_. And lastly, we may gather
this further from his Informations, That the homogeneous Substances
obtainable from compound Bodies by his piercing Liquor, were
oftentimes different enough both as to Number and as to Nature, from
those into which the same Bodies are wont to be divided by common
Fire. Of which I shall need in this place to mention no other proof,
then that whereas we know that in our common _Analysis_ of a mixt
Body, there remains a terrestrial and very fixt Substance, oftentimes
associated with a Salt as fixt; Our Author tells us, that by his way
he could Distill over all Concretes without any _Caput mortuum_, and
consequently could make those parts of the Concrete volatile, which in
the Vulgar _Analysis_ would have been fixt. So that if our Chymists
will not reject the solemn and repeated Testimony of a Person, who
cannot but be acknowledg'd for one of the greatest Spagyrists that
they can boast of, they must not deny that there is to be found in
Nature another Agent able to Analyze compound Bodies less violently,
and both more genuinely and more universally than the Fire. And for my
own part, though I cannot but say on this Occasion what (you know) our
Friend Mr. _Boyle_ is wont to say, when he is askt his Opinion of any
strange Experiment; _That He that hath seen it hath more Reason to
beleeve it, than He that hath not_; yet I have found _Helmont_ so
faithful a Writer, even in divers of his improbable Experiments (I
alwayes except that Extravagant Treatise _De Magnetica Vulnerum
Curatione_, which some of his Friends affirm to have been first
publish'd by his Enemies) that I think it somewhat harsh to give him
the Lye, especially to what he delivers upon his own proper Tryal. And
I have heard from very credible Eye-witnesses some things, and seen
some others my self, which argue so strongly, that a circulated Salt,
or a _Menstruum_ (such as it may be) may by being abstracted from
compound Bodies, whether Mineral, Animal, or Vegetable, leave them
more unlockt than a wary Naturalist would easily beleeve, that I dare
not confidently measure the Power of Nature and Art by that of the
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