The Sceptical Chymist: or Chymico-Physical Doubts & Paradoxes, Touching the Spagyrist's Principles Commonly call'd Hypostatical; As they are wont to be Propos'd and Defended by the Generality of Alchymists. Whereunto is præmis'd Part of another Discourse relating to the same Subject.Boyle, Robert
Philosophy
The Sceptical Chymist: or Chymico-Physical Doubts & Paradoxes, Touching the Spagyrist's Principles Commonly call'd Hypostatical; As they are wont to be Propos'd and Defended by the Generality of Alchymists. Whereunto is præmis'd Part of another Discourse relating to the same Subject.
Boyle, Robert
Chemistry -- Early works to 1800
Nor indeed can I well understand, how Bodies can be mingl'd other
wayes then as I have declar'd, or at least how they can be mingl'd, as
our Peripateticks would have it. For whereas _Aristotle_ tells us,
that if a Drop of Wine be put into ten thousand Measures of Water, the
Wine being Overpower'd by so Vast a Quantity of Water will be turn'd
into it, he speaks to my Apprehension, very improbably; For though One
should add to that Quantity of Water as many Drops of Wine as would a
Thousand times exceed it all, yet by his Rule the whole Liquor should
not be a _Crama_, a Mixture of Wine and Water, wherein the Wine would
be Predominant, but Water only; Since the Wine being added but by a
Drop at a time would still Fall into nothing but Water, and
Consequently would be turn'd into it. And if this would hold in Metals
too, 'twere a rare secret for Goldsmiths, and Refiners; For by melting
a Mass of Gold, or Silver, and by but casting into it Lead or
Antimony, Grain after Grain, they might at pleasure, within a
reasonable Compass of time, turn what Quantity they desire, of the
Ignoble into the Noble Metalls. And indeed since a Pint of wine, and a
pint of water, amount to about a Quart of Liquor, it seems manifest to
sense, that these Bodies doe not Totally Penetrate one another, as one
would have it; but that each retains its own Dimensions; and
Consequently, that they are by being Mingl'd only divided into minute
Bodies, that do but touch one another with their Surfaces, as do the
Grains, of Wheat, Rye, Barley, &c. in a heap of severall sorts of
Corn: And unless we say, that as when one measure of wheat, for
Instance, is Blended with a hundred measures of Barley, there happens
only a _Juxta_-position and Superficial Contact betwixt the Grains of
wheat, and as many or thereabouts of the Grains of Barley. So when a
Drop of wine is mingl'd with a great deal of water, there is but an
Apposition of so many Vinous Corpuscles to a Correspondent Number of
Aqueous ones; Unless I say this be said, I see not how that Absurdity
will be avoyded, whereunto the Stoical Notion of mistion (namely by
[Greek: synchysis] [Errata: [Greek: Synchysis]], or Confusion) was
Liable, according to which the least Body may be co-extended with the
greatest: Since in a mixt Body wherein before the Elements were
Mingl'd there was, for Instance, but one pound of water to ten
thousand of Earth, yet according to them there must not be the least
part of that Compound, that Consisted not as well of Earth, as water.
But I insist, Perhaps, too long (sayes _Eleutherius_) upon the proofs
afforded me by the Nature of Mistion: Wherefore I will but name Two or
Three other Arguments; whereof the first shall be, that according to
_Aristotle_ himself, the motion of a mixt Body followes the Nature of
the Predominant Element, as those wherein the Earth prevails, tend
towards the Centre of heavy Bodies. And since many things make it
Evident, that in divers Mixt Bodies the Elementary Qualities are as
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