contriv'd Vessels. But of these Experiments our Friend (sayes
_Carneades_, pointing at the Register of this Dialogue) will perhaps
give You a more Particular Account then it is necessary for me to do:
Since what I have now said may sufficiently evince, that the Fire may
sometimes as well alter Bodies as divide them, and by it we may obtain
from a Mixt Body what was not Pre-existent in it. And how are we sure
that in no other Body what we call Phlegme is barely separated, not
Produc'd by the Action of the Fire: Since so many other Mixt Bodies
are of a much less Constant, and more alterable Nature, then Mercury,
by many Tricks it is wont to put upon Chymists, and by the Experiments
I told You of, about an hour since, Appears to be. But because I
shall ere long have Occasion to resume into Consideration the Power of
the Fire to produce new Concretes, I shall no longer insist on this
Argument at present; only I must mind You, that if You will not
dis-believe _Helmonts_ Relations, You must confess that the _Tria
Prima_ are neither ingenerable nor incorruptible Substances; since by
his _Alkahest_ some of them may be produc'd of Bodies that were before
of another Denomination; and by the same powerfull _Menstruum_ all of
them may be reduc'd into insipid Water.
Here _Carneades_ was about to pass on to his Third Consideration, when
_Eleutherius_ being desirous to hear what he could say to clear his
second General Consideration from being repugnant to what he seem'd to
think the true Theory of Mistion, prevented him by telling him, I
somewhat wonder, _Carneades_, that You, who are in so many Points
unsatisfied with the Peripatetick Opinion touching the Elements and
Mixt Bodies, should also seem averse to that Notion touching the
manner of Mistion, wherein the Chymists (though perhaps without
knowing that they do so) agree with most of the Antient Philosophers
that preceded _Aristotle_, and that for Reasons so considerable, that
divers Modern Naturalists and Physitians, in other things unfavourable
enough to the Spagyrists, do in this case side with them against the
common Opinion of the Schools. If you should ask me (continues
_Eleutherius_) what Reasons I mean? I should partly by the Writings of
_Sennertus_ and other learned Men, and partly by my own Thoughts, be
supply'd with more, then 'twere at present proper for me to Insist
largely on. And therefore I shall mention only, and that briefly,
three or four. Of these, I shall take the First from the state of the
Controversie itself, and the genuine Notion of Mistion, which though
much intricated by the Schoolmen, I take in short to be this,
71