to prevent your Objecting, that some of the Substances I may have
occasion to mention by and by, are not perfectly Homogeneous, nor
Consequently worthy of the name of Principles. For that which I am now
to consider, is, into how many Differing Substances, that may
plausibly pass for the Elementary Ingredients of a mix'd Body, it may
be Analyz'd by the Fire; but whether each of these be un-compounded, I
reserve to examine, when I shall come to the next General
Consideration; where I hope to evince, that the Substances which the
Chymists not only allow, but assert to be the Component Principles of
the Body resolv'd into them, are not wont to be uncompounded.
Now there are two Kind of Arguments (pursues _Carneades_) which may be
brought to make my Third Proposition seem probable; one sort of them
being of a more Speculative Nature, and the other drawn from
Experience. To begin then with the first of these.
But as _Carneades_ was going to do as he had said, _Eleutherius_
interrupted him, by saying with a somewhat smiling countenance;
If you have no mind I should think, that the Proverb, _That Good Wits
have bad Memories_, is Rational and Applicable to You, You must not
Forget now you are upon the Speculative Considerations, that may
relate to the Number of the Elements; that your Self did not long
since Deliver and Concede some Propositions in Favour of the Chymical
Doctrine, which I may without disparagement to you think it uneasie,
even for _Carneades_ to answer.
I have not, replies he, Forgot the Concessions you mean; but I hope
too, that you have not forgot neither with what Cautions they were
made, when I had not yet assumed the Person I am now sustaining. But
however, I shall to content You, so discourse of my Third general
consideration, as to let You see, That I am not Unmindful of the
things you would have me remember.
To talk then again according to such principles as I then made use of,
I shall represent, that if it be granted rational to suppose, as I
then did, that the Elements consisted at first of certain small and
primary Coalitions of the minute Particles of matter into Corpuscles
very numerous, and very like each other, It will not be absurd to
conceive, that such primary Clusters may be of far more sorts then
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