To be short, As the difference of Bodies may depend meerly upon that of the schemes whereinto their Common matter is put; So the seeds of Things, the Fire and the other Agents are able to alter the minute parts of a Body (either by breaking them into smaller ones of differing shapes, or by Uniting together these Fragments with the unbroken Corpuscles, or such Corpuscles among Themselves) and the same Agents partly by Altering the shape or bigness of the Constituent Corpuscles of a Body, partly by driving away some of them, partly by blending others with them, and partly by some new manner of connecting them, may give the whole portion of matter a new Texture of its minute parts; and thereby make it deserve a new and Distinct name. So that according as the small parts of matter recede from each other, or work upon each other, or are connected together after this or that determinate manner, a Body of this or that denomination is produced, as some other Body happens thereby to be alter'd or destroy'd. Since then those things which Chymists produce by the help of the Fire are but inanimate Bodies; since such fruits of the Chymists skill differ from one another but in so few qualities that we see plainly that by fire and other Agents we can employ, we can easily enough work as great alterations upon matter, as those that are requisite to change one of these Chymical Productions into another; Since the same portion of matter may without being Compounded with any extraneous Body, or at least Element, be made to put on such a variety of formes, and consequently to be (successively) turn'd into so many differing Bodies. And since the matter cloath'd with so many differing formes was originally but water, and that in its passage thorow so many transformations, it was never reduc'd into any of those substances which are reputed to be the Principles or Elements of mixt Bodies, except by the violence of the fire, which it self divides not Bodies into perfectly simple or Elementary substances, but into new Compounds; Since, I say, these things are so, I see not why we must needs believe that there are any Primogeneal and simple Bodies, of which as of Pre-exsistent Elements Nature is obliged to compound all others. Nor do I see why we may not conceive that she may produce the Bodies accounted mixt out of one another by Variously altering and contriving their minute parts, without resolving the matter into any such simple or Homogeneous substances as are pretended. Neither, to dispatch, do I see why it should be counted absur'd [Transcriber's Note: absurd] to think, that when a Body is resolv'd by the Fire into its suppos'd simple Ingredients, those substances are not true and proper Elements, but rather were, as it were, Accidentally produc'd by the fire, which by Dissipating a Body into minute Parts does, if those parts be shut up in Close Vessels, for the most part necessarily bring them to Associate Themselves after another manner than before, and so