Verdigrease. But Continues _Carneades_ smiling, you know I was not
cut out for a Mountebank, and therefore I will hasten to resume the
person of a Sceptick, and take up my discourse where You diverted me
from prosecuting it.
In the next place, then, I consider, that, as there are some Bodies
which yield not so many as the three Principles; so there are many
others, that in their Resolution Exhibite more principles than three;
and that therefore the Ternary Number is not that of the Universal and
Adequate Principles of Bodies. If you allow of the Discourse I ately
[Errata: lately] made You, touching the primary Associations of the
small Particles of matter, You will scarce think it improbable, that
of such Elementary Corpuscles there may be more sorts then either
three, or four, or five. And if you will grant, what will scarce be
deny'd, that Corpuscles of a compounded Nature may in all the wonted
Examples of Chymists pass for Elementary, I see not, why you should
think it impossible, that as _Aqua Fortis_, or _Aqua Regis_ will make
a Separation of colliquated Silver and Gold, though the Fire cannot;
so there may be some Agent found out so subtile and so powerfull, at
least in respect of those particular compounded Corpuscles, as to be
able to resolve them into those more simple ones, whereof they
consist, and consequently encrease the number of the Distinct
Substances, whereinto the mixt Body has been hitherto thought
resoluble. And if that be true, which I recited to you a while ago out
of _Helmont_ concerning the Operations of the _Alkahest_, which
divides Bodies into other Distinct Substances, both as to number and
Nature, then the Fire does; it will not a little countenance my
Conjecture. But confining our selves to such wayes of Analyzing mix'd
Bodies, as are already not unknown to Chymists, it may without
Absurdity be Question'd, whether besides those grosser Elements of
Bodies, which they call Salt Sulphur and Mercury, there may not be
Ingredients of a more Subtile Nature, which being extreamly little,
and not being in themselves Visible, may escape unheeded at the
Junctures of the Destillatory Vessels, though never so carefully
Luted. For let me observe to you one thing, which though not taken
notice of by Chymists, may be a notion of good Use in divers Cases to
a Naturalist, that we may well suspect, that there may be severall
Sorts of Bodies, which are not Immediate Objects of any one of our
senses; since we See, that not only those little Corpuscles that issue
out of the Loadstone, and perform the Wonders for which it is justly
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