The Fourth Part.

and plainly, gives us this Description of Mercury; Mercurius (sayes he) est liquor ille acidus, permeabilis, penetrabilis, æthereus, ac purissimus, a quo omnis Nutricatio, Sensus, Motus, Vires, Colores, Senectutisque Præproperæ retardatio. Which words are not so much a Definition of it, as an Encomium : and yet Quercetanus in his Description of the same Principle adds to these, divers other Epithets . But both of them, to skip very many other faults that may be found with their Metaphoricall Descriptions, speak incongruously to the Chymists own Principles. For if Mercury be an Acid Liquor, either Hermetical Philosophy must err in ascribing all Tasts to Salt, or else Mercury must not be a Principle, but Compounded of a Saline Ingredient and somewhat else. Libavius , though he find great fault with the obscurity of what the Chymists write concerning their Mercurial Principle, does yet but give us such a Negative Description of it, as Sennertus , how favourable soever to the Tria Prima , is not satisfi’d with. And this Sennertus Himself, though the Learnedst Champion for the Hypostatical Principles, does almost as frequently as justly complain of the unsatisfactoriness of what the Chymists teach concerning their Mercury;