and to understand both by the one and the other, those primitive and simple Bodies of which the mixt ones are said to be composed, and into which they are ultimately resolved. And upon the same account (he added) we agreed to discourse of the opinions to be debated, as we have found them maintained by the Generality of the assertors of the four Elements of the one party, and of those that receive the three Principles on the other, without tying our selves to enquire scrupulously what notion either _Aristotle_ or _Paracelsus_, or this or that Interpreter, or follower of either of those great persons, framed of Elements or Principles; our design being to examine, not what these or those writers thought or taught, but what we find to be the obvious and most general opinion of those, who are willing to be accounted Favourers of the Peripatetick or Chymical Doctrine, concerning this subject. I see not (saies _Eleutherius_) why you might not immediately begin to argue, if you were but agreed which of your two friendly Adversaries shall be first heard. And it being quickly resolv'd on that _Themistius_ should first propose the Proofs for his Opinion, because it was the antienter, and the more general, he made not the company expect long before he thus addressed himself to _Eleutherius_, as to the Person least interessed in the dispute. If you have taken sufficient notice of the late Confession which was made by _Carneades_, and which (though his Civility dressed it up in complementall Expressions) was exacted of him by his Justice, I suppose You will be easily made sensible, that I engage in this Controversie with great and peculiar Disadvantages, besides those which his Parts and my Personal Disabilities would bring to any other cause to be maintained by me against him. For he justly apprehending the force of truth, though speaking by no better a tongue then mine, has made it the chief condition of our Duell, that I should lay aside the best Weapons I have, and those I can best handle; Whereas if I were allowed the freedom, in pleading for the four Elements, to employ the Arguments suggested to me by Reason to demonstrate them, I should almost as little doubt of making You a Proselyte to those unsever'd Teachers, Truth and _Aristotle_, as I do of your Candour and your Judgment. And I hope you will however consider, that that great Favorite and Interpreter of Nature, _Aristotle_, who was (as his _Organum_ witnesses) the greatest Master of Logick that ever liv'd, disclaim'd the course taken by other petty Philosophers (Antient and Modern) who not attending the Coherence and Consequences of their Opinions, are more sollicitous to make each particular Opinion plausible independently upon the the [Transcriber's Note: extra "the" in original] rest, then to frame them all so, as not only to be consistent together, but to support each other. For that great Man in his vast and comprehensive Intellect, so fram'd each of his Notions,