I remmember that _Helmont_ himself somewhere confesses, That as the Fire betters some things and improves their Vertues, so it spoyles others and makes them degenerate. And elsewhere he judiciously affirmes, that there may be sometimes greater vertue in a simple, such as Nature has made it, than in any thing that can by the fire be separated from it. And lest you should doubt whether he means by the vertues of things those that are Medical; he has in one place[27] this ingenuous confession; _Credo_ (sayes he) _simplicia in sua simplicitate esse sufficientia pro sanatione omnium morborum._ Nag. [Errata: Nay,] Barthias, even in a Comment upon _Beguinus_,[28] scruples not to make this acknowledgment; _Valde absurdum est_ (sayes he) _ex omnibus rebus extracta facere, salia, quintas essentias; praesertim ex substantiis per se plane vel subtilibus vel homogeneis, quales sunt uniones, Corallia, Moscus, Ambra, &c._ Consonantly whereunto he also tells Us (and Vouches the famous _Platerus_, for having candidly given the same Advertisement to his Auditors,) that some things have greater vertues, and better suited to our humane nature, when unprepar'd, than when they have past the Chymists Fire; as we see, sayes my Author, in Pepper; of which some grains swallowed perform more towards the relief of a Distempered stomack, than a great quantity of the Oyle of the same spice. [Footnote 27: Helmont Pharm. & Dispens. Nov. p. 458.] [Footnote 28: Vide Jer. ad Begu. Lib. 1. Cap. 17.] It has been (pursues _Carneades_) by our Friend here present observ'd concerning Salt-petre, that none of the substances into which the Fire is wont to divide it, retaines either the Tast, the cooling vertue, or some other of the properties of the Concrete; and that each of those Substances acquires new qualities, not to be found in the Salt-Petre it self. The shining property of the tayls of gloworms does survive but so short a time the little animal made conspicuous by it, that inquisitive men have not scrupled publickly to deride _Baptista Porta_ and others; who deluded perhaps with some Chymical surmises have ventur'd to prescribe the distillation of a Water from the tayles of Glowormes, as a sure way to obtain a liquor shining in the Dark. To which I shall now add no other example than that afforded us by Amber; which, whilst it remains an intire body, is endow'd with an Electrical faculty of drawing to it self fethers, strawes, and such like Bodies; which I never could observe either in its Salt, its Spirit, its Oyle, or in the Body I remember I once made by the reunion of its divided Elements; none of these having such a Texture as the intire Concrete. And however Chymists boldly deduce such and such properties from this or that proportion of their component Principles; yet in Concretes that abound with this or that Ingredient, 'tis not alwayes so much by vertue of its presence, nor its plenty, that the Concrete is qualify'd