But (sayes _Carneades_) since neither You nor I love Repetitions, I shall not now make any of what else was urg'd against _Themistius_ but rather invite You to take notice with me that when our Authour, though a Learned Man, and one that pretends skill enough in Chymistry to reforme the whole Art, comes to make good his confident Undertaking, to give us an occular Demonstration of the immediate Presence of the four Elements in the resolution of Green Wood, He is fain to say things that agree very little with one another. For about the beginning of that passage of His lately recited to you, he makes the sweat as he calls it of the green Wood to be Water, the smoke Aire, the shining Matter Fire, and the Ashes Earth; whereas a few lines after, he will in each of these, nay (as I just now noted) in one Distinct Part of the Ashes, shew the four Elements. So that either the former _Analysis_ must be incompetent to prove that Number of Elements, since by it the burnt Concrete is not reduc'd into Elementary Bodies, but into such as are yet each of them compounded of the four Elements; or else these Qualities from which he endeavours to deduce the presence of all the Elements, in the fixt salt, and each of the other separated substances, will be but a precarious way of probation: especially if you consider, that the extracted _Alcali_ of Wood, being for ought appears at least as similar a Body as any that the Peripateticks can shew us, if its differing Qualities must argue the presence of Distinct Elements, it will scarce be possible for them by any way they know of employing the fire upon a Body, to shew that any Body is a Portion of a true Element: And this recals to my mind, that I am now but in an occasional excussion, which aiming only to shew that the Peripateticks as well as the Chymists take in our present Controversie something for granted which they ought to prove, I shall returne to my exceptions, where I ended the first of them, and further tell you, that neither is that the only precarious thing that I take notice of in _Sennertus_ his Argumentation; for when he inferrs, that because the Qualities he Mentions as Colours, Smels, and the like, belong not to the Elements; they therefore must to the Chymical Principles, he takes that for granted, which will not in haste be prov'd; as I might here manifest, but that I may by and by have a fitter opportunity to take notice of it. And thus much at present may suffice to have Discours'd against the Supposition, that almost every Quality must have some [Greek: dektikon proton], as they speak, some Native receptacle, wherein as in its proper Subject of inhesion it peculiarly resides, and on whose account that quality belongs to the other Bodies, Wherein it is to be met with. Now this Fundamental supposition being once Destroy'd, whatsoever is built upon it, must fall to ruine of it self.