Part 13

One thing more there is, _Eleutherius_, sayes _Carneades_, which is so pertinent to my present purpose, that though I have touch'd upon it before, I cannot but on this occasion take notice of it. And it is this, That the Qualities or Accidents, upon whose account Chymists are wont to call a portion of Matter by the name of Mercury or some other of their Principles, are not such but that 'tis possible as Great (and therefore why not the like?) may be produc'd by such changes of Texture, and other Alterations, as the Fire may make in the small Parts of a Body. I have already prov'd, when I discours'd of the second General Consideration, by what happens to plants nourish'd only with fair water, and Eggs hatch'd into Chickens, that by changing the disposition of the component parts of a Body, Nature is able to effect as great Changes in a parcell of Matter reputed similar, as those requisite to Denominate one of the _Tria Prima_. And though _Helmont_ do somewhere wittily call the Fire the Destructor and the Artificial Death of Things; And although another Eminent Chymist and Physitian be pleas'd to build upon this, That Fire can never generate any thing but Fire; Yet You will, I doubt not, be of another mind, If You consider how many new sorts of mixt Bodies Chymists themselves have produc'd by means of the Fire: And particularly, if You consider how that Noble and Permanent Body, Glass, is not only manifestly produc'd by the violent action of the Fire, but has never, for ought we know, been produc'd any other way. And indeed it seems but an inconsiderate Assertion of some _Helmontians_, that every sort of Body of a Peculiar Denomination must be produc'd by some Seminal power; as I think I could evince, if I thought it so necessary, as it is for me to hasten to what I have further to discourse. Nor need it much move us, that there are some who look upon whatsoever the Fire is employ'd to produce, not as upon Natural but Artificial Bodies. For there is not alwaies such a difference as many imagine betwixt the one and the other: Nor is it so easy as they think, clearly to assigne that which Properly, Constantly, and Sufficiently, Discriminates them. But not to engage my self in so nice a Disquisition, it may now suffice to observe, that a thing is commonly termed Artificial, when a parcel of matter is by the Artificers hand, or Tools, or both, brought to such a shape or Form, as he Design'd before-hand in his Mind: Whereas in many of the Chymical Productions the effect would be produc'd whether the Artificer intended it or no; and is oftentimes very much other then he Intended or Look't for; and the Instruments employ'd, are not Tools Artificially fashion'd and shaped, like those of Tradesmen, for this or that particular Work; but, for the most part, Agents of Nature's own providing, and whose chief Powers of Operation they receive from their own Nature or Texture, not the Artificer. And indeed, the Fire is as well a Natural Agent as Seed: And the Chymist that imployes it, does but apply Natural Agents and Patients, who being thus brought together, and acting according to their respective Natures, performe the worke themselves; as Apples, Plums, or other fruit, are natural Productions, though the Gardiner bring and fasten together the Sciens of the Stock, and both Water, and do perhaps divers other wayes Contribute to its bearing fruit. But, to proceed to what I was going to say, You may observe with me, _Eleutherius_, that, as I told You once before, Qualities sleight enough may serve to Denominate a Chymical Principle. For, when they anatomize a compound Body by the Fire, if they get a Substance inflamable, and that will not mingle with Water, that they presently call Sulphur; what is sapid and Dissoluble in Water, that must pass for Salt; Whatsoever is fix'd and indissoluble in Water, that they name Earth. And I was going to add, that, whatsoever Volatile substance they know not what to make of, not to say, whatsoever they please, that they call Mercury. But that these Qualities may either be produc'd, otherwise then by such as they call Seminal Agents, or may belong to bodies of a compounded Nature, may be shewn, among other Instances, in Glass made of ashes, where the exceeding strongly-tasted _Alcalizate_ Salt joyning with the Earth becomes insipid, and with it constitutes a Body, which though also dry, fixt, and indissoluble in Water, is yet manifestly a mixt Body; and made so by the Fire itself.

And I remmember to our present purpose, that _Helmont_,[15] amongst other Medicines that he commends, has a short processe, wherein, though the Directions for Practice are but obscurely intimated; yet I have some reason not to Dis-believe the Process, without affirming or denying any thing about the vertues of the remedy to be made by it. _Quando_ (sayes he) _oleum cinnamomi &c. suo sali alkali miscetur absque omni aqua, trium mensium artificiosa occultaque circulatione, totum in salem volatilem commutatum est, vere essentiam sui simplicis in nobis exprimit, & usque in prima nostri constitutivasese ingerit._ A not unlike Processe he delivers in another place; from whence, if we suppose him to say true, I may argue, that since by the Fire there may be produc'd a substance that is as well Saline and volatile as the Salt of Harts-horn, blood, &c. which pass for Elementary; and since that this Volatile Salt is really compounded of a Chymical Oyle and a fixt Salt, the one made Volatile by the other, and both associated by the fire, it may well be suspected that other Substances, emerging upon the Dissipation of Bodies by the Fire, may be new sorts of Mixts, and consist of Substances of differing natures; and particularly, I have sometimes suspected, that since the Volatile Salts of Blood, Harts-horn, &c. are figitive [Errata: fugitive] and endow'd with an exceeding strong smell, either that Chymists do Erroneously ascribe all odours to sulphurs, or that such Salts consist of some oyly parts well incorporated with the Saline ones. And the like conjecture I have also made concerning Spirit of Vinager, which, though the Chymists think one of the Principles of that Body, and though being an Acid Spirit it seems to be much less of kin then Volatile Salts to sulphurs; yet, not to mention its piercing smell; which I know not with what congruity the Chymist will deduce from Salt, I wonder they have not taken notice of what their own _Tyrocinium Chymicum_ teach us concerning the Destillation of _Saccharum Saturni_; out of which _Beguinus_[16] assures Us, that he distill'd, besides a very fine spirit, no lesse then two Oyles, the one blood-red and ponderous, but the other swimming upon the top of the Spirit, and of a yellow colour; of which he sayes that he kept then some by him, to verify what he delivers. And though I remember not that I have had two distinct Oyles from Sugar of Lead, yet that it will though distill'd without addition yield some Oyle, disagrees not with my Experience. I know the Chymists will be apt to pretend, that these Oyls are but the volatiliz'd sulphur of the lead; and will perhaps argue it from what _Beguinus_ relates, that when the Distillation is ended, you'l find a _Caput Mortuum_ extreamly black, and (as he speaks) _nullius momenti_, as if the Body, or at least the chief part of the Metal it self were by the distillation carried over the Helme. But since you know as well as I that _Saccharum Saturni_ is a kind of Magistery, made only by calcining of Lead _per se_, dissolving it in distill'd Vinager, and crystalizing the solution; if I had leasure to tell You how Differing a thing I did upon examination find the _Caput Mortuum_, so sleighted by _Beguinus_, to be from what he represents it, I believe you would think the conjecture propos'd less probable then one or other of these three; either that this Oyle did formerly concur to constitute the Spirit of Vinager, and so that what passes for a Chymical Principle may yet be further resoluble into distinct substances; or that some parts of the Spirit together with some parts of the Lead may constitute a Chymical Oyle, which therefore though it pass for Homogeneous, may be a very compounded Body: or at least that by the action of the Distill'd Vinager and the Saturnine Calx one upon another, part of the Liquor may be so alter'd as to be transmuted from an Acid Spirit into an Oyle. And though the truth of either of the two former conjectures would make the example I have reflected on more pertinent to my present argument; yet you'l easily discern, the Third and last Conjecture cannot be unserviceable to confirm some other passages of my discourse.

[Footnote 15: Helmont pag. 412.]

[Footnote 16: Tyroc. Chym. L. 1. C. 4.]

To return then to what I was saying just before I mention'd _Helmont's_ Experiment, I shall subjoyne, That Chymists must confess also that in the perfectly Dephlegm'd spirit of Wine, or other Fermented Liquors, that which they call the Sulphur of the Concrete loses, by the Fermentation, the Property of Oyle, (which the Chymists likewise take to be the true Sulphur of the Mixt) of being unminglable with the Water. And if You will credit _Helmont_,[17] all [Errata: a pound] of the purest Spirit of Wine may barely by the help of pure Salt of Tartar (which is but the fixed Salt of Wine) be resolv'd or Transmuted into scarce half an ounce of Salt, and as much Elementary Water as amounts to the remaining part of the mention'd weight. And it may (as I think I formerly also noted) be doubted, whether that Fixt and Alcalizate Salt, which is so unanimously agreed on to be the Saline Principle of incinerated Bodies, be not, as 'tis Alcalizate, a Production of the Fire? For though the tast of Tartar, for Example, seem to argue that it contains a Salt before it be burn'd, yet that Salt being very Acid is of a quite Differing Tast from the Lixiviate Salt of Calcin'd Tartar. And though it be not truly Objected against the Chymists, that they obtain all Salts they make, by reducing the Body they work on into Ashes with Violent Fires, (since Hartshorn, Amber, Blood, and divers other Mixts yield a copious Salt before they be burn'd to Ashes) yet this Volatile Salt Differs much, as we shall see anon, from the Fixt Alcalizate Salt I speak of; which for ought I remember is not producible by any known Way, without Incineration. 'Tis not unknown to Chymists, that Quicksilver may be Precipitated, without Addition, into a dry Powder, that remains so in Water. And some eminent _Spagyrists_, and even _Raimund Lully_ himself, teach, that meerly by the Fire Quicksilver may in convenient Vessels be reduc'd (at least in great part) into a thin Liquor like Water, and minglable with it. So that by the bare Action of the Fire, 'tis possible, that the parts of a mixt Body should be so dispos'd after new and differing manners, that it may be sometimes of one consistence, sometimes of another; And may in one State be dispos'd to be mingl'd with Water, and in another not. I could also shew you, that Bodies from which apart Chymists cannot obtain any thing that is Combustible, may by being associated together, and by the help of the Fire, afford an inflamable Substance. And that on the other side, 'tis possible for a Body to be inflamable, from which it would very much puzzle any ordinary Chymist; and perhaps any other, to separate an inflamable Principle or Ingredient. Wherefore, since the Principles of Chymists may receive their Denominations from Qualities, which it often exceeds not the power of Art, nor alwayes that of the Fire to produce; And since such Qualities may be found in Bodies that differ so much in other Qualities from one another, that they need not be allow'd to agree in that pure and simple Nature, which Principles, to be so indeed, must have; it may justly be suspected, that many Productions of the Fire that are shew'd us by Chymists, as the Principles of the Concrete that afforded them, may be but a new kind of Mixts. And to annex, on this Occasion, to these arguments taken from the Nature of the thing, one of those which _Logicians_ call _ad Hominem_, I shall desire You to take Notice, that though _Paracelsus_ Himself, and some that are so mistaken as to think he could not be so, have ventur'd to teach, that not only the bodies here below, but the Elements themselves, and all the other Parts of the Universe, are compos'd of Salt, Sulphur and Mercury; yet the learned _Sennertus_, and all the more wary Chymists, have rejected that conceit, and do many of them confess, that the _Tria Prima_ are each of them made up of the four Elements; and others of them make Earth and Water concur with Salt, Sulphur and Mercury, to the Constitution of Mixt bodies. So that one sort of these _Spagyrists_, notwithstanding the specious Titles they give to the productions of the Fire, do in effect grant what I contend for. And, of the other sort I may well demand, to what Kind of Bodies the Phlegme and dead Earth, to be met with in Chymical Resolutions, are to be referr'd? For either they must say, with _Paracelsus_, but against their own Concessions as well as against Experience, that these are also compos'd of the _Tria Prima_, whereof they cannot separate any one from either of them; or else they must confess that two of the vastest Bodies here below, Earth, and Water, are neither of them compos'd of the _Tria Prima_; and that consequently those three are not the Universal, and Adequate Ingredients, neither of all Sublunary Bodies, nor even of all mixt Bodies.

[Footnote 17: _Ostendi alias, quomodo lib. una aquæ vitæ combibita in sale Tartari siccato, vix fiat semuncia salis, cæterum totum corpus fiat aqua Elementalis. Helmont. in Aura vitali._]