“In the days of the early Greeks, the word ‘element’ was applied rather to denote a property of matter than one of its constituents. Thus, when a substance was said to contain fire, air, water, and earth (of which terms a childish game, doubtless once played by all of us, is a relic), it probably meant that they partook of the nature of the so-called elements. Inflammability showed the presence of concealed fire; the escape of ‘airs’ when some substances are heated or when vegetable or animal matter is distilled, no doubt led to the idea that these airs were imprisoned in the matters from which they escaped; and hardness and permanence were ascribed to the presence of earth, while liquidity and fusibility were properties conveyed by the presence of concealed water. At a later date the ‘Spagyrics’ added three ‘hypostatical principles’ to the quadrilateral; these were ‘salt,’ ‘sulphur,’ and ‘mercury.’ The first conveyed solubility, and fixedness in fire; the second, inflammability, and the third, the power which some substances manifest of producing a liquid, generally termed ‘phlegm,’ on application of heat, or of themselves being converted into the liquid state by fusion. “It was Robert Boyle, in his _Skeptical Chymist_, who first controverted these ancient and medieval notions, and who gave to the word ‘element’ the meaning that it now possesses—the constituent of a compound.”[211] So the truths that Robert Boyle’s writings held forth have, in spite of opposition, established themselves, as he himself believed they would establish themselves, in the minds of men. CHAPTER XIII POLITICS AND PHILOSOPHY “Died that arch rebell Oliver Cromwell, cal’d Protector.”—EVELYN’S _Diary_, Sept. 3, 1658. “And if the common charity allowed to dead men be exercised towards him, in burying his faults in the grave with himself, and keeping alive the memory of his virtues and great aims and actions, he will be allowed to have his place amongst the worthiest of men, ... I doubt his loss will be a growing affliction upon these nations, and that we shall learn to value him more by missing him—a perverseness of our nature that teaches us, in every condition wherein we are, therewith to be discontent, by undervaluing what we have, and overvaluing what we have lost. I confess his performances reached not the making good of his professions; but I doubt his performances may go beyond the professions of those who may come after him.”—LADY RANELAGH to LORD BROGHILL, from Youghal, Sept. 17, 1658. “O human glory vain! O death! O wings! O worthless world! O transitory things! Yet dwelt that greatness in his shape decayed That still, though dead, greater than death he laid, And in his altered face you something feign That threatens Death he yet will live again.”