"But let us pass from simple to compound Bodies, they'll furnish me with much more frequent Subjects; and to demonstrate that all things are in all things, not that they change into one another, as your _Peripateticks_ Juggle:[5] for I will maintain to their Teeth, that the Principles mingle, separate, and mingle again in such a manner, that that hath been made Water by the Wise Creator of the World, will always be Water; I shall suppose no Maxime, as they do, but what I prove. "And therefore take a Billet, or any other combustible stuff, and set Fire to it, they'll say when it is in a Flame, That what was Wood is now become Fire; but I maintain the contrary, and that there is no more Fire in it, when it is all in Flame, than before it was kindled; but that which before was hid in the Billet, and by the Humidity and Cold hindered from acting; being now assisted by the Stranger, hath rallied its forces against the Phlegm that choaked it, and commanding the Field of Battle, that was possessed by its Enemy, triumphs over his Jaylor and appears without Fetters. Don't you see how the Water flees out at the two ends of the Billet, hot and smoaking from the Fight it was engaged in. That flame which you see rise on high is the purer Fire, unpestered from the Matter, and by consequence the readiest to return home to it self: Nevertheless it Unites it self by tapering into a Piramide till it rise to a certain height, that it may pierce through the thick Humidity of the Air which resists it; but as mounting it disengaged it self by little and little from the violent company of its Landlords; so it diffuses it self, because then it meets with nothing that thwarts its passage, which negligence, though, is many times the cause of a second Captivity: For marching stragglingly, it wanders sometimes into a Cloud, and if it meet there with a Party of its own sufficient to make head against a Vapour, they Engage, Grumble, Thunder and Roar, and the Death of Innocents is many times the effect of the animated Rage of those inanimated Things. If, when it finds it self pestered among those Crudities of the middle Region, it is not strong enough to make a defence, it yields to its Enemy upon discretion; which by its weight constrains it to fall again to the Earth: And this Wretch,[6] inclosed in a drop of Rain, may per haps fall at the Foot of an Oak, whose Animal Fire will invite the poor Straggler to take a Lodging with him; and thus you have it in the same condition again as it was a few Days before.