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
If you have no mind I should think, that the Proverb, _That Good Wits
have bad Memories_, is Rational and Applicable to You, You must not
Forget now you are upon the Speculative Considerations, that may
relate to the Number of the Elements; that your Self did not long
since Deliver and Concede some Propositions in Favour of the Chymical
Doctrine, which I may without disparagement to you think it uneasie,
even for _Carneades_ to answer.
I have not, replies he, Forgot the Concessions you mean; but I hope
too, that you have not forgot neither with what Cautions they were
made, when I had not yet assumed the Person I am now sustaining. But
however, I shall to content You, so discourse of my Third general
consideration, as to let You see, That I am not Unmindful of the
things you would have me remember.
To talk then again according to such principles as I then made use of,
I shall represent, that if it be granted rational to suppose, as I
then did, that the Elements consisted at first of certain small and
primary Coalitions of the minute Particles of matter into Corpuscles
very numerous, and very like each other, It will not be absurd to
conceive, that such primary Clusters may be of far more sorts then
three or five; and consequently, that we need not suppose, that in
each of the compound Bodies we are treating of there should be found
just three sorts of such primitive Coalitions, as we are speaking of.
And if according to this Notion we allow a considerable number of
differing Elements, I may add, that it seems very possible, that to
the constitution of one sort of mixt Bodies two kinds of Elementary
ones may suffice (as I lately Exemplify'd to you, in that most durable
Concrete, Glass,) another sort of Mixts may be compos'd of three
Elements, another of four, another of five, and another perhaps of
many more. So that according to this Notion, there can be no
determinate number assign'd, as that of the Elements; of all sorts of
compound Bodies whatsoever, it being very probable that some Concretes
consist of fewer, some of more Elements. Nay, it does not seem
Impossible, according to these Principles, but that there may be two
sorts of Mixts, whereof the one may not have any of all the same
Elements as the other consists of; as we oftentimes see two words,
whereof the one has not any one of the Letters to be met with in the
other; or as we often meet with diverse Electuaries, in which no
Ingredient (except Sugar) is common to any two of them. I will not
here debate whether there may not be a multitude of these Corpuscles,
which by reason of their being primary and simple, might be called
Elementary, if several sorts of them should convene to compose any
Body, which are as yet free, and neither as yet contex'd and entangl'd
with primary Corpuscles of other kinds, but remains liable to be
subdu'd and fashion'd by Seminal Principles, or the like powerful and
Transmuting Agent, by whom they may be so connected among themselves,
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