LXI. I have remarked before, that if we are ignorant of what the
elemental bodies consist, we cannot possibly know the nature of the
mixtures. But even if we could ascertain what the elements are, we
should still remain in profound philosophical ignorance with respect
to the component parts, of both them and the mixtures; for admitting
the four following, air, fire, water, and earth, to be elements of all
the mixtures; who has yet ascertained the nature of those four bodies?
Aristotle only reasoned upon their qualities, and this he did with so
little precision, that all he said may be looked upon as doubtful, for
he had no solid principle, from whence he inferred, that they possessed
the properties which he attributed to them; but drew all his conclusions,
from an ideal proportion which struck his own imagination; and respecting
which, it has since been proved, that he was mistaken. He says that
air is hot, and fire dry in the highest degree; but in our essay on
physical paradoxes, we have proved that the air is not hot; and according
to Aristotle’s definition of humidity, we may infer, that a flame is
humid, for it cannot be contained within its own bounds, but pervades
other regions. We also proved in our essay on physical paradoxes, that
elemental fire is not hot in the highest degree; and to what I said
there, I will add in this place, that experience shews us, one fire is
hotter than another, and has greater power to heat or melt substances,
either in consequence of its greater bulk, or on account of the matter
with which it is made, or the manner the place is disposed and contrived,
in which it is lighted; from all which it may be inferred, that fire in
its nature is not hot in the highest degree, for if it was, as in every
fire the nature of fire is preserved, every fire would be hot in the
highest degree, and of course, could not be exceeded in heat by another
fire.
LXII. Aristotle however, did no more than assign false or uncertain
qualities to his four elements, and left untouched, substantial nature
which is the root of them; and those who succeeded him in all after-ages,
if they aimed at more, attained no more. The sectaries of Aristotle
content themselves with saying of the elements, what they say of all
other natural compositions; that is, that they are constituted of
matter in physical forms, are real incompleat entities, and evidently
distinct from each other. By all which, admitting this description to
be right, they teach us nothing, till they explain to us, of what the
physical form consists, and what is the specific nature of the physical
form, in every natural composition. But their system explained in the
general way, in which they themselves define it, is strongly combated by
the modern philosophers, who find an insurmountable difficulty in the
generation of the material forms, not being able to comprehend, how their
production can be any thing else but a new creation; for the arguments
the Aristotelites fly to, of deducing them from the power of the matter,
contain nothing but words, void of all real signification; and truly
Aristotle himself having said, that the form is one of the principles of
a natural entity, and that the principles are those things, which are
neither made from their own substance, nor from that of any other entity
whatever, shew them to be words which have no fixed meaning: _Quæ nec ex
se, nec ex aliis, sed ex quibus omnia fiunt_; how then can we reconcile
this doctrine, with the form being made of the matter?