is but a _Juxta_-position of separable Corpuscles, retaining each its
own Nature, whereas according to the _Aristotelians_, when what they
are pleas'd to call a mixt Body results from the Concourse of the
Elements, the _Miscibilia_ cannot so properly be said to be Alter'd,
as Destroy'd, since there is no Part in the mixt Body, how small
soever, that can be call'd either Fir [Transcriber's Note: Fire], or
Air, or Water, or Earth.
Nor indeed can I well understand, how Bodies can be mingl'd other
wayes then as I have declar'd, or at least how they can be mingl'd, as
our Peripateticks would have it. For whereas _Aristotle_ tells us,
that if a Drop of Wine be put into ten thousand Measures of Water, the
Wine being Overpower'd by so Vast a Quantity of Water will be turn'd
into it, he speaks to my Apprehension, very improbably; For though One
should add to that Quantity of Water as many Drops of Wine as would a
Thousand times exceed it all, yet by his Rule the whole Liquor should
not be a _Crama_, a Mixture of Wine and Water, wherein the Wine would
be Predominant, but Water only; Since the Wine being added but by a
Drop at a time would still Fall into nothing but Water, and
Consequently would be turn'd into it. And if this would hold in Metals
too, 'twere a rare secret for Goldsmiths, and Refiners; For by melting
a Mass of Gold, or Silver, and by but casting into it Lead or
Antimony, Grain after Grain, they might at pleasure, within a
reasonable Compass of time, turn what Quantity they desire, of the
Ignoble into the Noble Metalls. And indeed since a Pint of wine, and a
pint of water, amount to about a Quart of Liquor, it seems manifest to
sense, that these Bodies doe not Totally Penetrate one another, as one
would have it; but that each retains its own Dimensions; and
Consequently, that they are by being Mingl'd only divided into minute
Bodies, that do but touch one another with their Surfaces, as do the
Grains, of Wheat, Rye, Barley, &c. in a heap of severall sorts of
Corn: And unless we say, that as when one measure of wheat, for
Instance, is Blended with a hundred measures of Barley, there happens
only a _Juxta_-position and Superficial Contact betwixt the Grains of
wheat, and as many or thereabouts of the Grains of Barley. So when a
Drop of wine is mingl'd with a great deal of water, there is but an
Apposition of so many Vinous Corpuscles to a Correspondent Number of
Aqueous ones; Unless I say this be said, I see not how that Absurdity
will be avoyded, whereunto the Stoical Notion of mistion (namely by
[Greek: synchysis] [Errata: [Greek: Synchysis]], or Confusion) was
73