Principles. For that which I am now to consider, is, into how many Differing Substances, that may plausibly pass for the Elementary Ingredients of a mix’d Body, it may be Analyz’d by the Fire; but whether each of these be un-compounded, I reserve to examine, when I shall come to the next General Consideration; where I hope to evince, that the Substances which the Chymists not only allow, but assert to be the Component Principles of the Body resolv’d into them, are not wont to be uncompounded.
Now there are two Kind of Arguments (pursues Carneades) which may be brought to make my Third Proposition seem probable; one sort of them being of a more Speculative Nature, and the other drawn from Experience. To begin then with the first of these.
But as Carneades was going to do as he had said, Eleutherius interrupted him, by saying with a somewhat smiling countenance;
If you have no mind I should think, that the Proverb, That Good Wits have bad Memories, is Rational and Applicable to You, You must not Forget now you are upon the Speculative Considerations, that may relate to the Number of the Elements; that your Self did not long since Deliver and Concede some Propositions in Favour of the Chymical Doctrine, which I may without disparagement to you think it uneasie, even for Carneades to answer.
I have not, replies he, Forgot the Concessions you mean; but I hope too, that you have not forgot neither with what Cautions they were made, when I had not yet assumed the Person I am now sustaining. But however, I shall to content You, so discourse of my Third general consideration, as to let You see, That I am not Unmindful of the things you would have me remember.
To talk then again according to such principles as I then made use of, I shall represent, that if it be granted rational to suppose, as I then did, that