Part 15

This Disparity is also highly eminent in the separated sulphurs or Chymical Oyles of things. For they contain so much of the scent, and tast, and vertues, of the Bodies whence they were drawn, that they seem to be but the Material _Crasis_ (if I may so speak) of their Concretes. Thus the Oyles of Cinnamon, Cloves, Nutmegs and other spices, seem to be but the United Aromatick parts that did ennoble those Bodies. And 'tis a known thing, that Oyl of Cinnamon, and oyle of Cloves, (which I have likewise observ'd in the Oyles of several Woods) will sink to the Bottom of Water: whereas those of Nutmegs and divers other Vegetables will swim upon it. The Oyle (abusively call'd spirit) of Roses swims at the Top of the Water in the forme of a white butter, which I remember not to have observ'd in any other Oyle drawn in any Limbeck; yet there is a way (not here to be declar'd) by which I have seen it come over in the forme of other Aromatick Oyles, to the Delight and Wonder of those that beheld it. In Oyle of Anniseeds, which I drew both with, and without Fermentation, I observ'd the whole Body of the Oyle in a coole place to thicken into the Consistence and Appearance of white Butter, which with the least heat resum'd its Former Liquidness. In the Oyl of Olive drawn over in a Retort, I have likewise more then once seen a spontaneous Coagulation in the Receiver: And I have of it by me thus Congeal'd; which is of such a strangely Penetrating scent, as if 'twould Perforate the Noses that approach it. The like pungent Odour I also observ'd in the Distill'd Liquor of common sope, which forc'd over from _Minium_, lately afforded an oyle of a most admirable Penetrancy; And he must be a great stranger, both to the Writings and preparations of Chymists, that sees not in the Oyles they distill from Vegetables and Animals, a considerable and obvious Difference. Nay I shall venture to add, _Eleutherius_, (what perhaps you will think of kin to a Paradox) that divers times out of the same Animal or Vegetable, there may be extracted Oyles of Natures obviously differing. To which purpose I shall not insist on the swimming and sinking Oyles, which I have sometimes observ'd to float on, and subside under the spirit of _Guajacum_, and that of divers other Vegetables Distill'd with a strong and lasting Fire; Nor shall I insist on the observation elsewhere mention'd, of the divers and unminglable oyles afforded us by Humane Blood long fermented and Digested with spirit of Wine, because these kind of oyles may seem chiefly to differ in Consistence and Weight, being all of them high colour'd and adust. But the Experiment which I devis'd to make out this Difference of the oyles of the same Vegetable, _ad Oculum_, (as they speak) was this that followes. I took a pound of Annisseeds, and having grosly beaten them, caused them to be put into a very large glass Retort almost filled with fair Water; and placing this Retort in a sand Furnace, I caus'd a very Gentle heat to be administer'd during the first day, and a great part of the second, till the Water was for the most part drawn off, and had brought over with it at least most of the Volatile and Aromatick Oyle of the seeds. And then encreasing the Fire, and changing the Receiver, I obtain'd besides an Empyreumatical Spirit, a quantity of adust oyle; whereof a little floated upon the Spirit, and the rest was more heavy, and not easily separable from it. And whereas these oyles were very dark, and smell'd (as Chymists speak) so strongly of the Fire, that their Odour did not betray from what Vegetables they had been forc'd; the other _Aromatick_ Oyle was enrich'd with the genuine smell and tast of the Concrete; and spontaneously coagulating it self into white butter did manifest self [Errata: it self] to be the true Oyle of Annisseeds; which Concrete I therefore chose to employ about this Experiment, that the Difference of these Oyles might be more conspicuous then it would have been, had I instead of it destill'd another Vegetable.

I had almost forgot to take notice, that there is another sort of Bodies, which though not obtain'd from Concretes by Distillation, many Chymists are wont to call their Sulphur; not only because such substances are, for the most part, high colour'd (whence they are also, and that more properly, called Tinctures) as dissolv'd Sulphurs are wont to be; but especially because they are, for the most part, abstracted and separated from the rest of the Masse by Spirit of Wine: which Liquor those men supposing to be Sulphureous, they conclude, that what it works upon, and abstracts, must be a Sulphur also. And upon this account they presume, that they can sequester the sulphur even of Minerals and Metalls; from which 'tis known that they cannot by Fire alone separate it. To all This I shall answer; That if these sequestred substances where indeed the sulphurs of the Bodies whence they are drawn, there would as well be a great Disparity betwixt Chymical Sulphurs obtain'd by Spirit of Wine, as I have already shewn there is betwixt those obtain'd by Distillation in the forme of Oyles: which will be evident from hence, that not to urge that themselves ascribe distinct vertues to Mineral Tinctures, extolling the Tincture of Gold against such and such Diseases; the Tincture of Antimony, or of its Glass, against others; and the Tincture of Emerauld against others; 'tis plain, that in Tinctures drawn from Vegetables, if the superfluous spirit of Wine be distill'd off, it leaves at the bottom that thicker substance which Chymists use to call the Extract of the Vegetable. And that these Extracts are endow'd with very differing Qualities according to the Nature of the Particular Bodies that afforded them (though I fear seldom with so much of the specifick vertues as is wont to be imagin'd) is freely confess'd both by Physitians and Chymists. But, _Eleutherius_, (sayes _Carneades_) we may here take Notice that the Chymists do as well in this case, as in many others, allow themselves a License to abuse Words: For not again to argue from the differing properties of Tinctures, that they are not exactly pure and Elementary Sulphurs; they would easily appear not to be so much as Sulphur's, although we should allow Chymical Oyles to deserve that Name. For however in some Mineral Tinctures the Natural fixtness of the extracted Body does not alwayes suffer it to be easily further resoluble into differing substances; Yet in very many extracts drawn from Vegetables, it may very easily be manifested that the spirit of Wine has not sequestred the sulphureous Ingredient from the saline and Mercurial ones; but has dissolv'd (for I take it to be a Solution) the finer Parts of the Concrete (without making any nice distinction of their being perfectly Sulphureous or not) and united it self with them into a kind of Magistery; which consequently must contain Ingredients or Parts of several sorts. For we see that the stones that are rich in vitriol, being often drench'd with rain-Water, the Liquor will then extract a fine and transparent substance coagulable into Vitriol; and yet though this Vitriol be readily dissoluble in Water, it is not a true Elementary Salt, but, as You know, a body resoluble into very differing Parts, whereof one (as I shall have occasion to tell You anon) is yet of a Metalline, and consequently not of an Elementary Nature. You may consider also, that common Sulphur is readily dissoluble in Oyle of Turpentine, though notwithstanding its Name it abounds as well, if not as much, in Salt as in true Sulphur; witness the great quantity of saline Liquor it affords being set to flame away under a glasse Bell. Nay I have, which perhaps You will think strange, with the same Oyle of Turpentine alone easily enough dissolv'd crude Antimony finely powder'd into a Blood-red Balsam, wherewith perhaps considerable things may be perform'd in Surgery. And if it were now Requisite, I could tell You of some other Bodies (such as Perhaps You would not suspect) that I have been able to work upon with certain Chymical Oyles. But instead of digressing further I shall make this use of the Example I have nam'd. That 'tis not unlikely, but that Spirit of Wine which by its pungent tast, and by some other Qualities that argue it better (especially its Reduciblenesse, according to _Helmont_, into _Alcali_, and Water,) seems to be as well of a Saline as of a Sulphureous Nature, may well be suppos'd Capable of Dissolving Substances That are not meerly Elementary sulphurs, though perhaps they may abound with Parts that are of kin thereunto. For I find that Spirit of Wine will dissolve _Gumm Lacca_, _Benzoine_, and the _Resinous_ Parts of _Jallap_, and even of _Guaiacum_; whence we may well suspect that it may from Spices, Herbs, and other lesse compacted Vegetables, extract substances that are not perfect Sulphurs but mixt Bodies. And to put it past Dispute, there is many a Vulgar Extract drawn with Spirit of Wine, which committed to Distillation will afford such differing substances as will Loudly proclaim it to have been a very compounded Body. So that we may justly suspect, that even in Mineral Tinctures it will not alwaies follow, that because a red substance is drawn from the Concrete by spirit of Wine, that Substance is its true and Elementary Sulphur. And though some of these Extracts may perhaps be inflamable; Yet besides that others are not, and besides that their being reduc'd to such Minuteness of Parts may much facilitate their taking Fire; besides this, I say, We see that common Sulphur, common Oyle, Gumm Lac, and many Unctuous and Resinous Bodies, will flame well enough, though they be of very compounded natures: Nay Travellers of Unsuspected Credit assure Us, as a known thing, that in some Northern Countries where Firr trees and Pines abound, the poorer sort of Inhabitants use Long splinters of those Resinous Woods to burne instead of Candles. And as for the rednesse wont to be met with in such solutions, I could easily shew, that 'tis not necessary it should proceed from the Sulphur of the Concrete, Dissolv'd by the Spirit of Wine; if I had leasure to manifest how much Chymists are wont to delude themselves and others by the Ignorance of those other causes upon whose account spirit of Wine and other _Menstruums_ may acquire a red or some other high colour. But to returne to our Chymical Oyles, supposing that they were exactly pure; Yet I hope they would be, as the best spirit of Wine is, but the more inflamable and deflagrable. And therefore since an Oyle can be by the Fire alone immediately turn'd into flame, which is something of a very differing Nature from it: I shall Demand how this Oyle can be a Primogeneal and Incorruptible Body, as most Chymists would have their Principles; Since it is further resoluble into flame, which whether or no it be a portion of the Element of Fire, as an _Aristotelian_ would conclude, is certainly something of a very differing Nature from a Chymical Oyle, since it burnes, and shines, and mounts swiftly upwards; none of which a Chymical Oyle does, whilst it continues such. And if it should be Objected, that the Dissipated Parts of this flaming Oyle may be caught and collected again into Oyl or Sulphur; I shall demand, what Chymist appears to have ever done it; and without Examining whether it may not hence be as well said that sulphur is but compacted Fire, as that Fire is but diffus'd Sulphur, I shall leave you to consider whether it may not hence be argu'd, that neither Fire nor Sulphur are primitive and indestructible Bodies; and I shall further observe that, at least it will hence appear that a portion of matter may without being Compounded with new Ingredients, by having the Texture and Motion of its small parts chang'd, be easily, by the means of the Fire, endow'd with new Qualities, more differing from them it had before, then are those which suffice to discriminate the Chymists Principles from one another.

We are next to Consider, whether in the Anatomy of mixt Bodies, that which Chymists call the Mercurial part of them be un-compounded, or no. But to tell You True, though Chymists do Unanimously affirm that their Resolutions discover a Principle, which they call Mercury, yet I find them to give of it Descriptions so Differing, and so Ænigmaticall, that I, who am not asham'd to confess that I cannot understand what is not sence, must acknowledge to you that I know not what to make of them. _Paracelsus_ himself, and therefore, as you will easily believe, many of his Followers, does somewhere call that Mercury which ascends upon the burning of Wood, as the Peripateticks are wont to take the same smoke for Air; and so seems to define Mercury by Volatility, or (if I may coyne such a Word) Effumability. But since, in this Example, both Volatile Salt and Sulphur make part of the smoke, which does indeed consist also both of Phlegmatick and Terrene Corpuscles, this Notion is not to be admitted; And I find that the more sober Chymists themselves disavow it. Yet to shew you how little of clearness we are to expect in the accounts even of latter _Spagyrists_, be pleas'd to take notice, that _Beguinus_, even in his _Tyrocinium Chymicum_,[20] written for the Instruction of Novices, when he comes to tell us what are meant by the _Tria Prima_, which for their being Principles ought to be defin'd the more accurately and plainly, gives us this Description of Mercury; _Mercurius_ (sayes he) _est liquor ille acidus, permeabilis, penetrabilis, æthereus, ac purissimus, a quo omnis Nutricatio, Sensus, Motus, Vires, Colores, Senectutisque Præproperæ retardatio._ Which words are not so much a Definition of it, as an _Encomium_: and yet _Quercetanus_ in his Description of the same Principle adds to these, divers other _Epithets_. But both of them, to skip very many other faults that may be found with their Metaphoricall Descriptions, speak incongruously to the Chymists own Principles. For if Mercury be an Acid Liquor, either Hermetical Philosophy must err in ascribing all Tasts to Salt, or else Mercury must not be a Principle, but Compounded of a Saline Ingredient and somewhat else. _Libavius_, though he find great fault with the obscurity of what the Chymists write concerning their Mercurial Principle, does yet but give us such a Negative Description of it, as _Sennertus_, how favourable soever to the _Tria Prima_, is not satisfi'd with. And this _Sennertus_ Himself, though the Learnedst Champion for the Hypostatical Principles, does almost as frequently as justly complain of the unsatisfactoriness of what the Chymists teach concerning their Mercury; and yet he himself (but with his wonted modesty) Substitutes instead of the Description of _Libavius_, another, which many Readers, especially if they be not Peripateticks, will not know what to make of. For scarce telling us any more, then that in all bodies that which is found besides Salt and Sulphur, and the Elements, or, as they call them, Phlegm and Dead Earth, is that Spirit which in _Aristotles_ Language may be call'd [Greek: ousian analogon [Errata: ousia analogos] tô tôn astrôn stoichaiô [Errata: astrôn stoicheiô]]. He sayes that which I confess is not at all satisfactory to me, who do not love to seem to acquiesce in any mans Mystical Doctrines, that I may be thought to understand them.

[Footnote 20: _Chm. Tyrocin. lib. 1. Cap. 2._]

If (sayes _Eleutherius_) I durst presume that the same thing would be thought clear by me, and those that are fond of such cloudy Expressions as You justly Tax the Chymists for, I should venture to offer to Consideration, whether or no, since the Mercurial Principle that arises from Distillation is unanimously asserted to be distinct from the salt and Sulphur of the same Concrete, that may not be call'd the Mercury of a Body, which though it ascend in Distillation, as do the Phlegme and Sulphur, is neither insipid like the former, nor inflamable like the latter. And therefore I would substitute to the too much abused Name of Mercury, the more clear and Familiar Appellation of Spirit, which is also now very much made use of even by the Chymists themselves, of our times, though they have not given us so Distinct an Explication, as were fit, of what may be call'd the Spirit of a mixt Body.

I should not perhaps (sayes _Carneades_) much quarrel with your Notion of Mercury. But as for the Chymists, what they can mean, with congruity to their own Principles, by the Mercury of Animals and Vegetables, 'twill not be so easie to find out; for they ascribe Tasts only to the Saline Principle, and consequently would be much put to it to shew what Liquor it is, in the Resolution of Bodies, that not being insipid, for that they call Phlegme, neither is inflamable as Oyle or Sulphur, nor has any Tast; which according to them must proceed from a Mixture, at least, of Salt. And if we should take Spirit in the sence of the Word receiv'd among Modern Chymists and Physitians, for any Distill'd Liquor that is neither Phlegme nor oyle, the Appellation would yet appear Ambiguous enough. For, plainly, that which first ascends in the Distillation of Wine and Fermented Liquors, is generally as well by Chymists as others reputed a Spirit. And yet pure Spirit of Wine being wholly inflamable ought according to them to be reckon'd to the Sulphureous, not the Mercurial Principle. And among the other Liquors that go under the name of Spirits, there are divers which seem to belong to the family of Salts, such as are the Spirits of Nitre, Vitriol, Sea-Salt and others, and even the Spirit of Harts-horn, being, as I have try'd, in great part, if not totally reducible into Salt and Phlegme, may be suspected to be but a Volatile Salt disguis'd by the Phlegme mingl'd with it into the forme of a Liquor. However if this be a Spirit, it manifestly differs very much from that of Vinager, the Tast of the one being Acid, and the other Salt, and their Mixture in case they be very pure, sometimes occasioning an Effervescence like that of those Liquors the Chymists count most contrary to one another. And even among those Liquors that seem to have a better title then those hitherto mention'd, to the name of Spirits, there appears a sensible Diversity; For spirit of Oak, for instance, differs from that of Tartar, and this from that of Box, or of _Guaiacum_. And in short, even these spirits as well as other Distill'd Liquors manifest a great Disparity betwixt themselves, either in their Actions on our senses, or in their other operations.

And (continues _Carneades_) besides this Disparity that is to be met with among those Liquors that the Modernes call spirits, & take for similar bodies, what I have formerly told you concerning the Spirit of Box-wood may let you see that some of those Liquors not only have qualities very differing from others, but may be further resolved into substances differing from one another.

And since many moderne Chymists and other Naturalists are pleased to take the Mercurial spirit of Bodies for the same Principle, under differing names, I must invite you to observe, with me, the great difference that is conspicuous betwixt all the Vegetable and Animal spirits I have mention'd and running Mercury. I speak not of that which is commonly sold in shops that many of themselves will confesse to be a mixt Body; but of that which is separated from Metals, which by some Chymists that seem more Philosophers then the rest, and especially by the above mentioned _Claveus_, is (for distinction sake) called _Mercurius Corporum_. Now this Metalline Liquor being one of those three Principles of which Mineral Bodies are by _Spagyrists_ affirmed to be compos'd and to be resoluble into them, the many notorious Differences betwixt them and the Mercuries, as They call Them, of Vegetables and Animals will allow me to inferr, either that Minerals and the other two sorts of Mixt Bodies consist not of the same Elements, or that those Principles whereinto Minerals are immediately resolved, which Chymists with great ostentation shew us as the true principles, of them, are but Secundary Principles, or Mixts of a peculiar sort, which must be themselves reduc'd to a very differing forme, to be of the same kind with Vegetable and Animal Liquors.

But this is not all; for although I formerly told You how Little Credit there is to be given to the Chymical Processes commonly to be met with, of Extracting the Mercuries of Metals, Yet I will now add, that supposing that the more Judicious of Them do not untruly affirme that they have really drawn true and running Mercury from several Metals (which I wish they had cleerly taught Us how to do also,) yet it may be still doubted whether such extracted Mercuries do not as well differ from common Quicksilver, and from one another, as from the Mercuries of Vegetables and Animalls. _Claveus_,[21] in his Apology, speaking of some _experiments_ whereby Metalline Mercuries may be fixt into the nobler metals, adds, that he spake of the Mercuries drawn from metals; because common Quicksilver by reason of its excessive coldnesse and moisture is unfit for that particular kind of operation; for which though a few lines before he prescribes in general the Mercuries of Metalline Bodies, yet he chiefly commends that drawn by art from silver. And elsewhere, in the same Book, he tells us, that he himself tryed, that by bare coction the quicksilver of Tin or Pewter (_argentum vivum ex stanno prolicitum_) may by an efficient cause, as he speaks, be turn'd into pure Gold. And the Experienc'd _Alexander van Suchten_, somewhere tells us, that by a way he intimates may be made a Mercury of Copper, not of the Silver colour of other Mercuries, but green; to which I shall add, that an eminent person, whose name his travells and learned writings have made famous, lately assur'd me that he had more then once seen the Mercury of Lead (which whatever Authors promise, you will find it very difficult to make, at least in any considerable quantity) fixt into perfect Gold. And being by me demanded whether or no any other Mercury would not as well have been changed by the same Operations, he assured me of the Negative.

[Footnote 21: _Dixi autem de argento vivo a metallis prolicito, quod vulgare ob nimiam frigiditatem & humiditatem nimium concoctioni est contumax, nec ab auro solum alterato coerceri potest._ Gast. Clave. in Apoll.]