upon them, as is Evident in the seeming Crystalls of Silver, and those of Mercury; which though by some inconsiderately supposed to be the Salts of those Metalls, are plainly but mixtures of the Metalline Bodies, with the Saline parts of Aqua fortis or other corrosive Liquors; as is evident by their being reducible into Silver or Quicksilver, as they were before.
I cannot but Confesse (saith Eleutherius) that though Chymists may upon probable grounds affirm themselves Able to obtain their Tria Prima, from Animals and Vegetables, yet I have often wondred that they should so confidently pretend also to resolve all Metalline and other Mineral bodies into Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury. For ’tis a saying almost Proverbial, among those Chymists themselves that are accounted Philosophers; and our famous Countryman Roger Bacon has particularly adopted it; that Facilius est aurum facere quam destruere. And I fear, with You, that Gold is not the only Mineral from which Chymists are wont fruitlessly to attempt the separating of their three Principles. I know indeed (continues Eleutherius) that the Learned Sennertus,Sennert. lib. de cons. & dissens. pag. 147. even in that book where he takes not upon him to play the Advocate for the Chymists, but the Umpier betwixt them and the Peripateticks, expresses himself roundly, thus; Salem omnibus inesse (mixtis scilicet) & ex iis fieri posse omnibus in resolutionibus Chymicis versatis notissimum est. And in the next Page, Quod de sale dixi, saies he, Idem de Sulphure dici potest: but by his favour I must see very good proofs, before I believe such general Assertions, how boldly soever made; and he that would convince me of their truth, must first teach me some true and practicable way of separating Salt and Sulphur from Gold, Silver, and those many different sort of Stones, that a violent Fire does not bring to Lime, but to Fusion; and not only I, for my own part, never saw any of those newly nam’d Bodies so resolved; but Helmont,Helmon. pag. 409. who was much better vers’d in the Chymical Anatomizing of Bodies then either Sennertus or I, has somewhere this resolute passage; Scio (saies he) ex arena, silicibus & saxis, non Calcariis, nunquam Sulphur aut Mercurium trahi posse; Nay QuercetanusQuercet. apud