Of the Experiments that induce me to make this Concession, I am like to have occasion enough to mention several in the prosecution of my Discourse. And therefore, that I may not hereafter be oblig’d to trouble You and my self with needless Repetitions, I shall now only desire you to take notice of such Experiments, when they shall be mention’d, and in your thoughts referre them hither.
To these three Concessions I have but this Fourth to add, That
Propos. IV.It may likewise be granted, that those distinct Substances, which Concretes generally either afford or are made up of, may without very much Inconvenience be call’d the Elements or Principles of them.
When I said, without very much Inconvenience, I had in my Thoughts that sober Admonition of Galen, Cum de re constat, de verbis non est Litigandum. And therefore also I scruple not to say Elements or Principles, partly because the Chymists are wont to call the Ingredients of mixt Bodies, Principles, as the Aristotelians name them Elements; I would here exclude neither. And, partly, because it seems doubtfull whether the same Ingredients may not be call’d Principles? as not being compounded of any more primary Bodies: and Elements, in regard that all mix’d Bodies are compounded of them. But I thought it requisite to limit my Concession by premising the words, very much, to the word Inconvenience, because that though the Inconvenience of calling the distinct Substances, mention’d in the Proposition Elements or Principles, be not very great, yet that it is an Impropriety of Speech, and consequently in a matter of this moment not to be altogether overlook’d, You will perhaps think, as well as I, by that time you shall have heard the following part of my Discourse, by which you will best discern what Construction to put upon the former Propositions, and how far they may be look’d upon, as things that I concede as true, and how far as things I only represent as specious enough to be fit to be consider’d.
And now Eleutherius (continues Carneades) I must resume the person of a Sceptick, and as such, propose some part of what may be either dislik’t, or at least doubted of in the common Hypothesis of the Chymists: which if I examine with a little the more freedom, I hope I need not desire you (a Person to whom I have the Happinesse of being so well known) to look upon it as something more suitable to the Employment whereto the Company has, for this Meeting, doom’d me; then either to my Humour or my Custom.
Now though I might present you many things against the Vulgar Chymical Opinion of the three Principles, and the Experiments wont to be alledg’d as Demonstrations of it, yet those I shall at present offer you may be conveniently enough comprehended in four Capital Considerations; touching all which I shall only premise this in general, That since it is not my present Task so much to assert an Hypothesis of my own, as to give an Account wherefore I suspect the Truth of that of the Chymists, it ought not to be expected that all my Objections should be of the most cogent sort, since it is reason enough to Doubt of a propos’d Opinion, that there appears no cogent Reason for it.
To come then to the Objections themselves; I consider in the first place, That notwithstanding what common Chymists have prov’d or taught, it may reasonably enough be Doubted, how far, and in what sence, Fire ought to be esteem’d the genuine and universal Instrument of analyzing mixt Bodies.
This Doubt, you may remember, was formerly mention’d, but so transiently discours’d of, that it will now be fit to insist upon it; And manifest that it was not so inconsiderately propos’d as our Adversaries then imagin’d.
But, before I enter any farther into this Disquisition, I cannot but here take notice, that it were to be wish’d, our Chymists had clearly inform’d us what kinde of Division of Bodies by Fire must determine the number of the Elements: For it is nothing near so easy as many seem to think, to determine distinctly the Effects of Heat, as I could easily manifest, if I had leasure to shew you how much the Operations of Fire may be diversify’d by Circumstances. But not wholly to pass by a matter of this Importance, I will first take notice to you, that Guajacum (for Instance) burnt with an open Fire in a Chimney, is sequestred into Ashes and Soot, whereas the same Wood distill’d in a Retort does yield far other Heterogeneities, (to use the Helmontian expression) and is resolv’d into Oyl, Spirit, Vinager, Water and Charcoal; the last of which to be reduc’d into Ashes, requires the being farther calcin’d then it can be in a close Vessel: Besides having kindled Amber, and held a clean Silver Spoon, or some other Concave and smooth Vessel over the Smoak of its Flame, I observ’d the Soot into which that Fume condens’d, to be very differing from any thing that I had observ’d to proceed from the steam of Amber purposely (for that is not usual) distilled per se in close Vessels. Thus having, for Tryals sake, kindled Camphire, and catcht the Smoak that copiously ascended out of the Flame, it condens’d into a Black and unctuous Soot, which would not have been guess’d by the Smell or other Properties to have proceeded from Camphire: whereas having (as I shall otherwhere more fully declare) expos’d a quantity of that Fugitive Concrete to a gentle heat in a close Glass-Vessel, it sublim’d up without seeming to have lost any thing of its whiteness, or its Nature, both which it retain’d, though afterwards I so encreased the Fire as to bring it to Fusion. And, besides Camphire, there are divers other Bodies (that I elsewhere name) in which the heat in close Vessels is not wont to make any separation of Heterogeneities, but only a comminution of Parts, those that rise first being Homogeneal with the others, though subdivided into smaller Particles: whence Sublimations have been stiled, The Pestles of the Chymists. But not here to mention what I elsewhere take notice of, concerning common Brimstone once or twice sublim’d, that expos’d to a moderate Fire in Subliming-Pots, it rises all into dry, and almost tastless, Flowers; Whereas being expos’d to a naked Fire it affords store of a Saline and Fretting Liquor: Not to mention this, I say, I will further observe to you, that as it is considerable in the Analysis of mixt Bodies, whether the Fire act on them when they are expos’d to the open Air, or shut up in close Vessels, so is the degree of Fire by which the Analysis is attempted of no small moment. For a milde Balneum will sever unfermented Blood (for Instance) but into Phlegme and Caput mortuum, the later whereof (which I have sometimes had) hard, brittle, and of divers Colours, (transparent almost like Tortoise-shell) press’d by a good Fire in a Retort yields a Spirit, an Oyl or two, and a volatile Salt, besides [a] Caput mortuum. It may be also pertinent to our present Designe, to take notice of what happens in the making and distilling of Sope; for by one degree of Fire the Salt, the Water and the Oyl or Grease, whereof that factitious Concrete is made up, being boyl’d up together are easily brought to mingle and incorporate into one Mass; but by another and further degree of Heat the same Mass may be again divided into an oleagenous, an aqueous, a Saline, and an Earthy part. And so we may observe that impure Silver and Lead being expos’d together to a moderate Fire, will thereby be colliquated into one Mass, and mingle per minima, as they speak, whereas a much vehementer Fire will drive or carry off the baser Metals (I mean the Lead, and the Copper or other Alloy) from the Silver, though not, for ought appears, separate them from one another. Besides, when a Vegetable abounding in fixt Salt is analyz’d by a naked Fire, as one degree of Heat will reduce it into Ashes, (as the Chymists themselves teach us) so, by only a further degree of Fire, those Ashes may be vitrified and turn’d into Glass. I will not stay to examine how far a meere Chymist might on this occasion demand, If it be lawful for an Aristotelian to make Ashes, (which he mistakes for meere Earth) pass for an Element, because by one degree of Fire it may be produc’d, why a Chymist may not upon the like Principle argue, that Glass is one of the Elements of many Bodies, because that also may be obtain’d from them, barely by the Fire? I will not, I say, lose time to examine this, but observe, that by a Method of applying the Fire, such similar Bodies may be obtain’d from a Concrete, as Chymists have not been able to separate; either by barely burning it in an open Fire, or by barely distilling it in close Vessels. For to me it seems very considerable, and I wonder that men have taken so little notice of it, that I have not by any of the common wayes of Distillation in close Vessels, seen any separation made of such a volatile Salt as is afforded us by Wood, when that is first by an open Fire divided into Ashes and Soot, and that Soot is afterwards plac’d in a strong Retort, and compell’d by an urgent Fire to part with its Spirit, Oyl and Salt; for though I dare not peremptorily deny, that in the Liquors of Guajacum and other Woods distill’d in Retorts after the common manner, there may be Saline parts, which by reason of the Analogy may pretend to the name of some kinde of volatile Salts; yet questionless there is a great disparity betwixt such Salts and that which we have sometimes obtain’d upon the first Distillation of Soot (though for the most part it has not been separated from the first or second Rectification, and sometimes not till the third) For we could never yet see separated from Woods analyz’d only the vulgar way in close vessels any volatile Salt in a dry and Saline form, as that of Soot, which we have often had very Crystalline and Geometrically figur’d. And then, whereas the Saline parts of the Spirits of Guajacum, &c. appear upon distillation sluggish enough, the Salt of Soot seems to be one of the most volatile Bodies in all Nature; and if it be well made will readily ascend with the milde heat of a Furnace, warm’d only by the single Wieck of a Lamp, to the top of the highest Glass Vessels that are commonly made use of for Distillation: and besides all this, the taste and smell of the Salt of Soot are exceeding differing from those of the Spirits of Guajacum, &c. and the former not only smells and tastes much less like a vegetable Salt, than like that of Harts-horn, and other Animal Concretes; but in divers other Properties seems more of Kinne to the Family of Animals, than to that of vegetable Salts, as I may elsewhere (God permitting) have an occasion more particularly to declare. I might likewise by some other Examples manifest, That the Chymists, to have dealt clearly, ought to have more explicitly and particularly declar’d by what Degree of Fire, and in what manner of Application of it, they would have us Judge a Division made by the Fire to be a true Analysis into their Principles, and the Productions of it to deserve the name of Elementary Bodies. But it is time that I proceed to mention the particular Reasons that incline me to Doubt, whether the Fire be the true and universal Analyzer of mixt Bodies; of which Reasons what has been already objected may pass for one.
In the next place I observe, That there are some mixt Bodies from which it has not been yet made appear, that any degree of Fire can separate either Salt or Sulphur or Mercury, much less all the Three. The most obvious Instance of this Truth is Gold, which is a Body so fix’d, and wherein the Elementary Ingredients (if it have any) are so firmly united to each other, that we finde not in the operations wherein Gold is expos’d to the Fire, how violent soever, that it does discernably so much as lose of its fixednesse or weight, so far is it from being dissipated into those Principles, whereof one at least is acknowledged to be Fugitive enough; and so justly did the Spagyricall Poet somewhere exclaim,