pertinent to my present purpose, that though I have touch'd upon it
before, I cannot but on this occasion take notice of it. And it is
this, That the Qualities or Accidents, upon whose account Chymists are
wont to call a portion of Matter by the name of Mercury or some other
of their Principles, are not such but that 'tis possible as Great (and
therefore why not the like?) may be produc'd by such changes of
Texture, and other Alterations, as the Fire may make in the small
Parts of a Body. I have already prov'd, when I discours'd of the
second General Consideration, by what happens to plants nourish'd only
with fair water, and Eggs hatch'd into Chickens, that by changing the
disposition of the component parts of a Body, Nature is able to effect
as great Changes in a parcell of Matter reputed similar, as those
requisite to Denominate one of the _Tria Prima_. And though _Helmont_
do somewhere wittily call the Fire the Destructor and the Artificial
Death of Things; And although another Eminent Chymist and Physitian be
pleas'd to build upon this, That Fire can never generate any thing but
Fire; Yet You will, I doubt not, be of another mind, If You consider
how many new sorts of mixt Bodies Chymists themselves have produc'd by
means of the Fire: And particularly, if You consider how that Noble
and Permanent Body, Glass, is not only manifestly produc'd by the
violent action of the Fire, but has never, for ought we know, been
produc'd any other way. And indeed it seems but an inconsiderate
Assertion of some _Helmontians_, that every sort of Body of a
Peculiar Denomination must be produc'd by some Seminal power; as I
think I could evince, if I thought it so necessary, as it is for me to
hasten to what I have further to discourse. Nor need it much move us,
that there are some who look upon whatsoever the Fire is employ'd to
produce, not as upon Natural but Artificial Bodies. For there is not
alwaies such a difference as many imagine betwixt the one and the
other: Nor is it so easy as they think, clearly to assigne that which
Properly, Constantly, and Sufficiently, Discriminates them. But not to
engage my self in so nice a Disquisition, it may now suffice to
observe, that a thing is commonly termed Artificial, when a parcel of
matter is by the Artificers hand, or Tools, or both, brought to such a
shape or Form, as he Design'd before-hand in his Mind: Whereas in many
of the Chymical Productions the effect would be produc'd whether the
Artificer intended it or no; and is oftentimes very much other then he
Intended or Look't for; and the Instruments employ'd, are not Tools
Artificially fashion'd and shaped, like those of Tradesmen, for this
or that particular Work; but, for the most part, Agents of Nature's
own providing, and whose chief Powers of Operation they receive from
their own Nature or Texture, not the Artificer. And indeed, the Fire
is as well a Natural Agent as Seed: And the Chymist that imployes it,
does but apply Natural Agents and Patients, who being thus brought
together, and acting according to their respective Natures, performe
the worke themselves; as Apples, Plums, or other fruit, are natural
Productions, though the Gardiner bring and fasten together the Sciens
of the Stock, and both Water, and do perhaps divers other wayes
Contribute to its bearing fruit. But, to proceed to what I was going
to say, You may observe with me, _Eleutherius_, that, as I told You
once before, Qualities sleight enough may serve to Denominate a
Chymical Principle. For, when they anatomize a compound Body by the
Fire, if they get a Substance inflamable, and that will not mingle
with Water, that they presently call Sulphur; what is sapid and
Dissoluble in Water, that must pass for Salt; Whatsoever is fix'd and
indissoluble in Water, that they name Earth. And I was going to add,
that, whatsoever Volatile substance they know not what to make of, not
to say, whatsoever they please, that they call Mercury. But that these
Qualities may either be produc'd, otherwise then by such as they call
Seminal Agents, or may belong to bodies of a compounded Nature, may be
shewn, among other Instances, in Glass made of ashes, where the
exceeding strongly-tasted _Alcalizate_ Salt joyning with the Earth
becomes insipid, and with it constitutes a Body, which though also
dry, fixt, and indissoluble in Water, is yet manifestly a mixt Body;
and made so by the Fire itself.
And I remmember to our present purpose, that _Helmont_,[15] amongst
other Medicines that he commends, has a short processe, wherein,
though the Directions for Practice are but obscurely intimated; yet I
have some reason not to Dis-believe the Process, without affirming or
denying any thing about the vertues of the remedy to be made by it.
_Quando_ (sayes he) _oleum cinnamomi &c. suo sali alkali miscetur
absque omni aqua, trium mensium artificiosa occultaque circulatione,
totum in salem volatilem commutatum est, vere essentiam sui simplicis
in nobis exprimit, & usque in prima nostri constitutivasese ingerit._
A not unlike Processe he delivers in another place; from whence, if we
suppose him to say true, I may argue, that since by the Fire there may
be produc'd a substance that is as well Saline and volatile as the
Salt of Harts-horn, blood, &c. which pass for Elementary; and since
that this Volatile Salt is really compounded of a Chymical Oyle and a
fixt Salt, the one made Volatile by the other, and both associated by
the fire, it may well be suspected that other Substances, emerging
upon the Dissipation of Bodies by the Fire, may be new sorts of Mixts,
and consist of Substances of differing natures; and particularly, I
have sometimes suspected, that since the Volatile Salts of Blood,
Harts-horn, &c. are figitive [Errata: fugitive] and endow'd with an
exceeding strong smell, either that Chymists do Erroneously ascribe
all odours to sulphurs, or that such Salts consist of some oyly parts
well incorporated with the Saline ones. And the like conjecture I have
also made concerning Spirit of Vinager, which, though the Chymists
think one of the Principles of that Body, and though being an Acid
Spirit it seems to be much less of kin then Volatile Salts to
sulphurs; yet, not to mention its piercing smell; which I know not
with what congruity the Chymist will deduce from Salt, I wonder they
have not taken notice of what their own _Tyrocinium Chymicum_ teach us
concerning the Destillation of _Saccharum Saturni_; out of which
_Beguinus_[16] assures Us, that he distill'd, besides a very fine
spirit, no lesse then two Oyles, the one blood-red and ponderous, but
the other swimming upon the top of the Spirit, and of a yellow colour;
of which he sayes that he kept then some by him, to verify what he
delivers. And though I remember not that I have had two distinct Oyles
from Sugar of Lead, yet that it will though distill'd without addition
yield some Oyle, disagrees not with my Experience. I know the Chymists
will be apt to pretend, that these Oyls are but the volatiliz'd
sulphur of the lead; and will perhaps argue it from what _Beguinus_
relates, that when the Distillation is ended, you'l find a _Caput
Mortuum_ extreamly black, and (as he speaks) _nullius momenti_, as if
the Body, or at least the chief part of the Metal it self were by the
distillation carried over the Helme. But since you know as well as I
that _Saccharum Saturni_ is a kind of Magistery, made only by
calcining of Lead _per se_, dissolving it in distill'd Vinager, and
crystalizing the solution; if I had leasure to tell You how Differing
a thing I did upon examination find the _Caput Mortuum_, so sleighted
by _Beguinus_, to be from what he represents it, I believe you would
think the conjecture propos'd less probable then one or other of these
three; either that this Oyle did formerly concur to constitute the
Spirit of Vinager, and so that what passes for a Chymical Principle
may yet be further resoluble into distinct substances; or that some
parts of the Spirit together with some parts of the Lead may
constitute a Chymical Oyle, which therefore though it pass for
Homogeneous, may be a very compounded Body: or at least that by the
action of the Distill'd Vinager and the Saturnine Calx one upon
another, part of the Liquor may be so alter'd as to be transmuted from
an Acid Spirit into an Oyle. And though the truth of either of the two
former conjectures would make the example I have reflected on more
pertinent to my present argument; yet you'l easily discern, the Third
and last Conjecture cannot be unserviceable to confirm some other
passages of my discourse.
[Footnote 15: Helmont pag. 412.]
[Footnote 16: Tyroc. Chym. L. 1. C. 4.]
To return then to what I was saying just before I mention'd
_Helmont's_ Experiment, I shall subjoyne, That Chymists must confess
also that in the perfectly Dephlegm'd spirit of Wine, or other
Fermented Liquors, that which they call the Sulphur of the Concrete
loses, by the Fermentation, the Property of Oyle, (which the Chymists
likewise take to be the true Sulphur of the Mixt) of being unminglable
with the Water. And if You will credit _Helmont_,[17] all [Errata: a
pound] of the purest Spirit of Wine may barely by the help of pure
Salt of Tartar (which is but the fixed Salt of Wine) be resolv'd or
Transmuted into scarce half an ounce of Salt, and as much Elementary
Water as amounts to the remaining part of the mention'd weight. And it
may (as I think I formerly also noted) be doubted, whether that Fixt
and Alcalizate Salt, which is so unanimously agreed on to be the
Saline Principle of incinerated Bodies, be not, as 'tis Alcalizate, a
Production of the Fire? For though the tast of Tartar, for Example,
seem to argue that it contains a Salt before it be burn'd, yet that
Salt being very Acid is of a quite Differing Tast from the Lixiviate
Salt of Calcin'd Tartar. And though it be not truly Objected against
the Chymists, that they obtain all Salts they make, by reducing the
Body they work on into Ashes with Violent Fires, (since Hartshorn,
Amber, Blood, and divers other Mixts yield a copious Salt before they
be burn'd to Ashes) yet this Volatile Salt Differs much, as we shall
see anon, from the Fixt Alcalizate Salt I speak of; which for ought I
remember is not producible by any known Way, without Incineration.
'Tis not unknown to Chymists, that Quicksilver may be Precipitated,
without Addition, into a dry Powder, that remains so in Water. And
some eminent _Spagyrists_, and even _Raimund Lully_ himself, teach,
that meerly by the Fire Quicksilver may in convenient Vessels be
reduc'd (at least in great part) into a thin Liquor like Water, and
minglable with it. So that by the bare Action of the Fire, 'tis
possible, that the parts of a mixt Body should be so dispos'd after
new and differing manners, that it may be sometimes of one
consistence, sometimes of another; And may in one State be dispos'd to
be mingl'd with Water, and in another not. I could also shew you, that
Bodies from which apart Chymists cannot obtain any thing that is
Combustible, may by being associated together, and by the help of the
Fire, afford an inflamable Substance. And that on the other side, 'tis
possible for a Body to be inflamable, from which it would very much
puzzle any ordinary Chymist; and perhaps any other, to separate an
inflamable Principle or Ingredient. Wherefore, since the Principles of
Chymists may receive their Denominations from Qualities, which it
often exceeds not the power of Art, nor alwayes that of the Fire to
produce; And since such Qualities may be found in Bodies that differ
so much in other Qualities from one another, that they need not be
allow'd to agree in that pure and simple Nature, which Principles, to
be so indeed, must have; it may justly be suspected, that many
Productions of the Fire that are shew'd us by Chymists, as the
Principles of the Concrete that afforded them, may be but a new kind
of Mixts. And to annex, on this Occasion, to these arguments taken
from the Nature of the thing, one of those which _Logicians_ call _ad
Hominem_, I shall desire You to take Notice, that though _Paracelsus_
Himself, and some that are so mistaken as to think he could not be so,
have ventur'd to teach, that not only the bodies here below, but the
Elements themselves, and all the other Parts of the Universe, are
compos'd of Salt, Sulphur and Mercury; yet the learned _Sennertus_,
and all the more wary Chymists, have rejected that conceit, and do
many of them confess, that the _Tria Prima_ are each of them made up
of the four Elements; and others of them make Earth and Water concur
with Salt, Sulphur and Mercury, to the Constitution of Mixt bodies. So
that one sort of these _Spagyrists_, notwithstanding the specious
Titles they give to the productions of the Fire, do in effect grant
what I contend for. And, of the other sort I may well demand, to what
Kind of Bodies the Phlegme and dead Earth, to be met with in Chymical
Resolutions, are to be referr'd? For either they must say, with
_Paracelsus_, but against their own Concessions as well as against
Experience, that these are also compos'd of the _Tria Prima_, whereof
they cannot separate any one from either of them; or else they must
confess that two of the vastest Bodies here below, Earth, and Water,
are neither of them compos'd of the _Tria Prima_; and that
consequently those three are not the Universal, and Adequate
Ingredients, neither of all Sublunary Bodies, nor even of all mixt
Bodies.
[Footnote 17: _Ostendi alias, quomodo lib. una aquae vitae combibita in
sale Tartari siccato, vix fiat semuncia salis, caeterum totum corpus
fiat aqua Elementalis. Helmont. in Aura vitali._]