Eleutherius perceiving that Carneades was somewhat unwilling to spend any more time upon the debate of this Opinion, and having perhaps some thoughts of taking hence a Rise to make him Discourse it more fully another time, thought not fit as then to make any further mention to him of the propos’d opinion, but told him;
I presume I need not mind you, Carneades, That both the Patrons of the ternary number of Principles, and those that would have five Elements, endeavour to back their experiments with a specious Reason or two; and especially some of those Embracers of the Opinion last nam’d (whom I have convers’d with, and found them Learned men) assigne this Reason of the necessity of five distinct Elements; that otherwise mixt Bodies could not be so compounded and temper’d as to obtain a due consistence and competent Duration. For Salt (say they) is the Basis of Solidity; and Permanency in Compound Bodies, without which the other four Elements might indeed be variously and loosly blended together, but would remain incompacted; but that Salt might be dissolv’d into minute Parts, and convey’d to the other Substances to be compacted by it, and with it, there is a Necessity of Water. And that the mixture may not be too hard and brittle, a Sulphureous or Oyly Principle must intervene to make the mass more tenacious; to this a Mercurial spirit must be superadded; which by its activity may for a while premeate, and as it were leaven the whole Mass, and thereby promote the more exquisite mixture and incorporation of the Ingredients. To all which (lastly) a portion of Earth must be added, which by its drinesse and [poracity] may soak up part of that water wherein the Salt was dissolv’d, and eminently concurr with the other ingredients to give the whole body the requisite consistence.
I perceive (sayes Carneades smiling) that if it be true, as ’twas lately [rooted] from the Proverb, That good Wits have bad Memories, You have that Title, as well as a better, to a place among the good Wits. For you have already more then once forgot, that I declar’d to you that I would at this Conference Examine only the Experiments of my Adversaries, not their Speculative Reasons. Yet ’tis not (Subjoynes Carneades) for fear of medling with the Argument you have propos’d, that I decline the examining it at present. For if when we are more at leasure, you shall have a mind that we may Solemnly consider of it together; I am confident we shall scarce find it insoluble. And in the mean time we may observe, that such a way of Arguing may, it seems, be speciously accommodated to differing Hypotheses. For I find that Beguinus, and other Assertors of the Tria Prima, pretend to make out by such a way, the requisiteness of their Salt, Sulphur and Mercury, to constitute mixt Bodies, without taking notice of any necessity of an Addition of Water and Earth.
And indeed neither sort of Chymists seem to have duly consider’d how great Variety there is in the Textures and Consistences of Compound [Bodie; sand] how little the consistence and Duration of many of them seem to accommodate and be explicable by the propos’d Notion. And not to mention those almost incorruptible Substances obtainable by the Fire, which I have prov’d to be somewhat compounded, and which the Chymists will readily grant not to be perfectly mixt Bodies: (Not to mention these, I say) If you will but recall to mind some of those Experiments, whereby I shew’d You that out of common Water only mixt Bodies (and even living ones) of very differing consistences, and resoluble by Fire into as many Principles as other bodies acknowledg’d to be perfectly mixt; if you do this, I say, you will not, I suppose, be averse from beleeving, that Nature by a convenient disposition of the minute parts of a portion of matter may contrive bodies durable enough, and of this, or that, or the other Consistence, without being oblig’d to make use of all, much less of any Determinate quantity of each of the five Elements, or of the three Principles to compound such bodies of. And I have (pursues Carneades) something wonder’d, Chymists should not consider, that there is scarce any body in Nature so permanent and indissoluble as Glass; which yet themselves teach us may be made of bare Ashes, brought to fusion by the meer Violence of the Fire; so that, since Ashes are granted to consist but of pure Salt and simple Earth, sequestred from all the other Principles or Elements, they must acknowledge, That even Art it self can of two Elements only, or, if you please, one Principle and one Element, compound a Body more durable then almost any in the World. Which being undeniable, how will they prove that Nature cannot compound Mixt Bodies, and even durable Ones, under all the five Elements or material Principles.
But to insist any longer on this Occasional Disquisition, Touching their Opinion that would Establish five Elements, were to remember as little as You did before, that the Debate of this matter is no part of my first undertaking; and consequently, that I have already spent time enough in what I look back upon but as a digression, or at best an Excursion.
And thus, Eleutherius, (sayes Carneades) having at length gone through the four Considerations I propos’d to Discourse unto you, I hold it not unfit, for fear my having insisted so long on each of them may have made you forget their Series, briefly to repeat them by telling you, that
Since, in the first place, it may justly be doubted whether or no the Fire be, as Chymists suppose it, the genuine and Universal Resolver of mixt Bodies;
Since we may doubt, in the next place, whether or no all the Distinct Substances that may be obtain’d from a mixt body by the Fire were pre-existent there in the formes in which they were separated from it;
Since also, though we should grant the Substances separable from mixt Bodies by the fire to have been their component Ingredients, yet the Number of such substances does not appear the same in all mixt Bodies; some of them being Resoluble into more differing substances than three, and Others not being Resoluble into so many as three.
And Since, Lastly, those very substances that are thus separated are not for the most part pure and Elementary bodies, but new kinds of mixts;