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
But I should perchance forgive the Hypothesis I have been all this
while examining, if, though it reaches but to a very little part of
the World, it did at least give us a satisfactory account of those
things to which 'tis said to reach. But I find not, that it gives us
any other then a very imperfect information even about mixt Bodies
themselves: For how will the knowledge of the _Tria Prima_ discover to
us the Reason, why the Loadstone drawes a Needle and disposes it to
respect the Poles, and yet seldom precisely points at them? how will
this Hypothesis teach Us how a Chick is formed in the Egge, or how the
Seminal Principles of Mint, Pompions, and other Vegitables, that I
mention'd to You above, can fashion Water into Various Plants, each of
them endow'd with its peculiar and determinate shape, and with divers
specifick and discriminating Qualities? How does this Hypothesis shew
us, how much Salt, how much Sulphur, and how much Mercury must be
taken to make a Chick or a Pompion? and if We know that, what
Principle is it, that manages these Ingredients, and contrives (for
instance) such Liquors as the White and Yelk of an Egge into such a
variety of Textures as is requisite to fashion the Bones, Veines,
Arteries, Nerves, Tendons, Feathers, Blood, and other parts of a
Chick; and not only to fashion each Limbe, but to connect them
altogether, after that manner that is most congruous to the perfection
of the Animal which is to Consist of Them? For to say, that some more
fine and subtile part of either or all the Hypostatical Principles is
the Director in all this business, and the Architect of all this
Elaborate structure, is to give one occasion to demand again, what
proportion and way of mixture of the _Tria Prima_ afforded this
_Architectonick_ Spirit, and what Agent made so skilful and happy a
mixture? And the Answer to this Question, if the Chymists will keep
themselves within their three Principles, will be lyable to the same
Inconvenience, that the Answer to the former was. And if it were not
to intrench upon the Theame of a Friend of ours here present, I could
easily prosecute the Imperfections of the Vulgar Chymists Philosophy,
and shew you, that by going about to explicate by their three
Principles, I say not, all the abstruse Properties of mixt Bodies, but
even such Obvious and more familiar _Phaenomena_ as _Fluidity_ and
_Firmness_, The Colours and Figures of Stones, Minerals, and other
compound Bodies, The Nutrition of either Plants or Animals, the
Gravity of Gold or Quicksilver compar'd with Wine or Spirit of Wine;
By attempting, I say, to render a reason of these (to omit a thousand
others as difficult to account for) from any proportion of the three
simple Ingredients, Chymists will be much more likely to discredit
themselves and their _Hypothesis_, then satisfy an intelligent
Inquirer after Truth.
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