yet contain Corpuscles of a very differing Nature, You will easily believe, if You but expose a good Quantity of Vitriol in a strong Vessel to a Competent Fire. For although it contains both Aqueous, Earthy, Saline, Sulphureous, and Metalline Corpuscles, yet the whole Mass will at first be Fluid like water, and boyle like a seething pot. I might easily (Continues _Carneades_) enlarge my self on such Considerations, if I were Now Oblig'd to give You my Judgment of the _Thalesian_, and _Helmontian_, _Hypothesis_. But Whether or no we conclude that all things were at first Generated of Water, I may Deduce from what I have try'd Concerning the Growth of Vegetables, nourish'd with water, all that I now propos'd to my Self or need at present to prove, namely that Salt, Spirit, Earth, and ev'n Oyl (though that be thought of all Bodies the most opposite to Water) may be produc'd out of Water; and consequently that a Chymical Principle as well as a Peripatetick Element, may (in some cases) be Generated anew, or obtain'd from such a parcel of Matter as was not endow'd with the form of such a principle or Element before. And having thus, _Eleutherius_, Evinc'd that 'tis possible that such Substances as those that Chymists are wont to call their _Tria Prima_, may be Generated, anew: I must next Endeavour to make it Probable, that the Operation of the Fire does Actually (sometimes) not only divide Compounded Bodies into smal Parts, but Compound those Parts after a new Manner; whence Consequently, for ought we Know, there may Emerge as well Saline and Sulphureous Substances, as Bodies of other Textures. And perhaps it will assist us in our Enquiry after the Effects of the Operations of the Fire upon other Bodies, to Consider a little, what it does to those Mixtures which being Productions of the Art of Man, We best know the Composition of. You may then be pleas'd to take Notice that though Sope is made up by the Sope-Boylers of Oyle or Grease, and Salt, and Water Diligently Incorporated together, yet if You expose the Mass they Constitute to a Graduall Fire in a Retort, You shall then indeed make a Separation, but not of the same Substances that were United into Sope, but of others of a Distant and yet not an Elementary Nature, and especially of an Oyle very sharp and Faetid, and of a very Differing Quality from that which was Employ'd to make the Sope: fo [Errata: so] if you Mingle in a due Proportion, _Sal Armoniack_ with Quick-Lime, and Distill them by Degrees of Fire, You shall not Divide the _Sal Armoniack_ from the Quick-Lime, though the one be a Volatile, and the other a Fix'd Substance, but that which will ascend will be a Spirit much more Fugitive, Penetrant, and stinking, then _Sal Armoniack_; and there will remain with the Quick-Lime all or very near all the Sea Salt that concurr'd to make up the _Sal Armoniack_; concerning which Sea Salt I shall, to satisfie You how well it was United to the Lime, informe You, that I have by