LVI. But abstracted from the quantum of extrinsic probability, contained in the doctrine of Aristotle respecting the elements; I assert, that upon a strict examination, you will not find more truth contained in his sentiments, than in those of his adversaries. This opinion, I deduce from the position, that his first qualities consist of four, to wit, heat, cold, wet, and dry, from which in exact proportion, he attributes one to be impregnated in the highest degree with each element, and another near to the highest. This proof, goes lame in innumerable particulars. First, the giving to these qualities the title of first, is conferring a mere voluntary dignity on them, and especially, when we know the invincible difficulty, that attends establishing, that all the others result from them. Secondly, it is very doubtful, whether all the four beforementioned, can properly be called qualities; for many Aristotelites, and with great colour of reason, deny humidity and dryness to be such. That which is humid, is not so from any quality it possesses in itself, but because it has imbibed into its pores some foreign liquid substance, and let that be evaporated, and it will remain dry; from which we may conclude, that humidity is a substance, and that dryness consists in the want of that substance. Thirdly, the appropriating these as two of the four elements, is done without any foundation or reason. In the next place, how can they prove that water is cold in the highest degree? If this was true it would kill us; neither can they prove it so, in a more moderate, or secondary degree, for we are taught by experience, it is indifferent to both cold and heat, according to the agent that is applied to it. It is heated by the fire; and remove it from the fire, and it becomes cool again, not because it has any propensity or natural disposition to be cold, but because it is made so, by the cool atmosphere which surrounds it. There are many other very grave objections to be urged against this doctrine of the four qualities; and therefore the foundation upon which it is built, and the reasoning deduced from it to establish the quaternian system of the elements, are both very slight and futil.