of Mistion: And if You will give me leave, I shall Briefly propose to you my present Notion of it, provided you will look upon it, not so much as an Assertion as an Hypothesis; in talking of which I do not now pretend to propose and debate the whole Doctrine of Mistion, but to shew that ’tis not Improbable, that sometimes mingl’d substances may be so strictly united, that it doth not by the usuall Operations of the Fire, by which Chymists are wont to suppose themselves to have made the Analyses of mixt Bodies, sufficiently appear, that in such Bodies the Miscibilia that concurr’d to make them up do each of them retain its own peculiar Nature: and by the Spagyrists Fires may be more easily extricated and Recover’d, than Alter’d, either by a Change of Texture in the Parts of the same Ingredient, or by an Association with some parts of another Ingredient more strict than was that of the parts of this or that Miscibile among themselves. At these words Eleu. having press’d him to do what he propos’d, and promis’d to do what he desir’d;
I consider then (resumes Carneades) that, not to mention those improper Kinds of mistion, wherein Homogeneous Bodies are Joyn’d, as when Water is mingl’d with water, or two Vessels full of the same kind of Wine with one another, the mistion I am now to Discourse of seems, Generally speaking, to be but an Union per Minima of any two or more Bodies of differing Denominations; as when Ashes and Sand are Colliquated into Glass or Antimony, and Iron into Regulus Martis, or Wine and Water are mingl’d, and Sugar is dissolv’d in the Mixture. Now in this general notion of Mistion it does not appear clearly comprehended, that the Miscibilia or Ingredients do in their small Parts so retain their Nature and remain distinct in the Compound, that they may thence by the Fire be again taken asunder: For though I deny not that in some Mistions of certain permanent Bodies this Recovery of the same Ingredients may be made, yet I am not convinc’d that it will hold in all or even in most, or that it is necessarily deducible from Chymicall Experiments, and the true Notion of Mistion. To explain this a little, I assume, that