The Second Part.

Bodies may be mingl’d, and that very durably, that are not Elementaryor resolv’d into Elements or Principles that they may be mingl’d; as is evident in the Regulus of Colliquated Antimony, and Iron newly mention’d; and in Gold Coyne, which lasts so many ages; wherein generally the Gold is alloy’d by the mixture of a quantity, greater or lesser, (in our Mints they use about a 12th. part) of either silver, or Copper, or both. Next, I consider, that there being but one Universal matter of things, as ’tis known that the Aristotelians themselves acknowledge, who call it Materia Prima (about which nevertheless I like not all their Opinions,) the Portions of this matter seem to differ from One Another, but in certain Qualities or Accidents, fewer or more; upon whose Account the Corporeal Substance they belong to receives its Denomination, and is referr’d to this or that particular sort of Bodies; so that if it come to lose, or be depriv’d of those Qualities, though it ceases not to be a body, yet it ceases from being that kind of Body as a Plant, or Animal; or Red, Green, Sweet, Sowre, or the like. I consider that it very often happens that the small parts of Bodies cohere together but by immediate Contact and Rest; and that however, there are few Bodies whose minute Parts stick so close together, to what cause soever their Combination be ascrib’d, but that it is possible to meet with some other Body, whose small Parts may get between them, and so dis-joyn them; or may be fitted to cohere more strongly with some of them, then those some do with the rest; or at least may be combin’d so closely with them, as that neither the Fire, nor the other usual Instruments of Chymical Anatomies will separate them. These things being promis’d, I will not peremptorily deny, but that there may be some Clusters of Particles, wherein the Particles are so minute, and the Coherence so strict, or both, that when Bodies of Differing Denominations, and consisting of such durable Clusters, happen to be mingl’d, though the Compound Body made up of them may be very Differing from either of the Ingredients, yet each of the little Masses or Clusters may so retain its own Nature, as to be again separable, such as it was before. As when Gold and Silver being melted