I cannot but Confesse (saith _Eleutherius_) that though Chymists may upon probable grounds affirm themselves Able to obtain their _Tria Prima_, from Animals and Vegetables, yet I have often wondred that they should so confidently pretend also to resolve all Metalline and other Mineral bodies into Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury. For 'tis a saying almost Proverbial, among those Chymists themselves that are accounted Philosophers; and our famous Countryman _Roger Bacon_ has particularly adopted it; that _Facilius est aurum facere quam destruere_. And I fear, with You, that Gold is not the only Mineral from which Chymists are wont fruitlessly to attempt the separating of their three Principles. I know indeed (continues _Eleutherius_) that the Learned _Sennertus_, even in that book where he takes not upon him to play the Advocate for the Chymists, but the Umpier betwixt them and the Peripateticks, expresses himself roundly, thus;[11] _Salem omnibus inesse (mixtis scilicet) & ex iis fieri posse omnibus in resolutionibus Chymicis versatis notissimum est._ And in the next Page, _Quod de sale dixi_, saies he, _Idem de Sulphure dici potest_: but by his favour I must see very good proofs, before I believe such general Assertions, how boldly soever made; and he that would convince me of their truth, must first teach me some true and practicable way of separating Salt and Sulphur from Gold, Silver, and those many different sort of Stones, that a violent Fire does not bring to Lime, but to Fusion; and not only I, for my own part, never saw any of those newly nam'd Bodies so resolved; but _Helmont_, who was much better vers'd in the Chymical Anatomizing of Bodies then either _Sennertus_ or _I_, has somewhere this resolute passage;[12] _Scio_ (saies he) _ex arena, silicibus & saxis, non Calcariis, nunquam Sulphur aut Mercurium trahi posse_; Nay _Quercetanus_ himself, though the grand stickler for the _Tria Prima_, has this Confession of the Irresolubleness of Diamonds;[13] _Adamas_ (saith he) _omnium factus Lapidum solidissimus ac durissimus ex arctissima videlicet trium principiorum unione ac Cohaerentia, quae nulla arte separationis in solutionem principiorum suorum spiritualium disjungi potest._ And indeed, pursues _Eleutherius_, I was not only glad, but somewhat surprized to find you inclined to Admit that there may be a Sulphur and a running Mercury drawn from Gold; for unlesse you do (as your expression seem'd to intimate) take the word Sulphur in a very loose sence, I must doubt whether our Chymists can separate a Sulphur from Gold: For when I saw you make the experiment that I suppose invited you to speak as you did, I did not judge the golden Tincture to be the true principle of Sulphur extracted from the body, but an aggregate of some such highly colour'd parts of the Gold, as a Chymist would have called a _Sulphur incombustible_, which in plain English seems to be little better than to call it a Sulphur and no Sulphur. And as for