_Aristotle_, at least as many of his Interpreters expound him, and as
indeed he Teaches in some places, where he professedly Dissents from
the Antients, declares Mistion to be such a mutual Penetration, and
perfect Union of the mingl'd Elements, that there is no Portion of the
mixt Body, how Minute soever, which does not contain All, and Every
of the Four Elements, or in which, if you please, all the Elements are
not. And I remember, that he reprehends the Mistion taught by the
Ancients, as too sleight or gross, for this Reason, that Bodies mixt
according to their _Hypothesis_, though they appear so to humane Eyes,
would not appear such to the acute Eyes of a _Lynx_, whose perfecter
Sight would discerne the Elements, if they were no otherwise mingled,
than as his Predecessors would have it, to be but Blended, not United;
whereas the Antients, though they did not all Agree about what kind of
Bodies were Mixt, yet they did almost unanimously hold, that in a
compounded Bodie, though the _Miscibilia_, whether Elements,
Principles, or whatever they pleas'd to call them, were associated in
such small Parts, and with so much Exactness, that there was no
sensible Part of the Mass but seem'd to be of the same Nature with the
rest, and with the whole; Yet as to the Atomes, or other Insensible
Parcels of Matter, whereof each of the _Miscibilia_ consisted, they
retain'd each of them its own Nature, being but by Apposition or
_Juxta_-Position united with the rest into one Bodie. So that
although by virtue of this composition the mixt Body did perhaps
obtain Divers new Qualities, yet still the Ingredients that Compounded
it, retaining their own Nature, were by the Destruction of the
_Compositum_ separable from each other, the minute Parts disingag'd
from those of a differing Nature, and associated with those of their
own sort returning to be again, Fire, Earth, or Water, as they were
before they chanc'd to be Ingredients of that _Compositum_. This may
be explain'd (Continues _Eleutherius_,) by a piece of Cloath made of
white and black threds interwoven, wherein though the whole piece
appear neither white nor black, but of a resulting Colour, that is
gray, yet each of the white and black threds that compose it, remains
what it was before, as would appear if the threds were pull'd asunder,
and sorted each Colour by it self. This (pursues _Eleutherius_) being,
as I understand it, the State of the Controversie, and the
_Aristotelians_ after their Master Commonly Defining, that Mistion is
_Miscibilium alteratorum Unio_, that seems to comport much better
with the Opinion of the Chymists, then with that of their Adversaries,
since according to that as the newly mention'd Example declares, there
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