The Sceptical Chymist: or Chymico-Physical Doubts & Paradoxes, Touching the Spagyrist's Principles Commonly call'd Hypostatical; As they are wont to be Propos'd and Defended by the Generality of Alchymists. Whereunto is præmis'd Part of another Discourse relating to the same Subject.Boyle, Robert
Philosophy
The Sceptical Chymist: or Chymico-Physical Doubts & Paradoxes, Touching the Spagyrist's Principles Commonly call'd Hypostatical; As they are wont to be Propos'd and Defended by the Generality of Alchymists. Whereunto is præmis'd Part of another Discourse relating to the same Subject.
Boyle, Robert
Chemistry -- Early works to 1800
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.
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