virtue of this composition the mixt Body did perhaps obtain Divers new Qualities, yet still the Ingredients that Compounded it, retaining their own Nature, were by the Destruction of the Compositum separable from each other, the minute Parts disingag’d from those of a differing Nature, and associated with those of their own sort returning to be again, Fire, Earth, or Water, as they were before they chanc’d to be Ingredients of that Compositum. This may be explain’d (Continues Eleutherius,) by a piece of Cloath made of white and black threds interwoven, wherein though the whole piece appear neither white nor black, but of a resulting Colour, that is gray, yet each of the white and black threds that compose it, remains what it was before, as would appear if the threds were pull’d asunder, and sorted each Colour by it self. This (pursues Eleutherius) being, as I understand it, the State of the Controversie, and the Aristotelians after their Master Commonly Defining, that Mistion is Miscibilium alteratorum Unio, that seems to comport much better with the Opinion of the Chymists, then with that of their Adversaries, since according to that as the newly mention’d Example declares, there is but a Juxta-position of separable Corpuscles, retaining each its own Nature, whereas according to the Aristotelians, when what they are pleas’d to call a mixt Body results from the Concourse of the Elements, the Miscibilia cannot so properly be said to be Alter’d, as Destroy’d, since there is no Part in the mixt Body, how small soever, that can be call’d either Fir, or Air, or Water, or Earth.
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