Artists promise, or my Assent to any just Inference; however destructive to my Conjectures, that may be drawn from their performances. But give me leave to tell you withall, that because such promises are wont (as Experience has more then once inform’d me) to be much more easily made, then made good by Chymists, I must withhold my Beliefe from their assertions, till their Experiments exact it; and must not be so easie as to expect before hand, an unlikely thing upon no stronger Inducements then are yet given me: Besides that I have not yet found by what I have heard of these Artists, that though they pretend to bring the several Substances into which the Fire has divided the Concrete, to an exquisite simplicity, They pretend also to be able by the Fire to divide all Concretes, Minerals, and others, into the same number of Distinct Substances. And in the mean time I must think it improbable, that they can either truly separate as many differing Bodies from Gold (for Instance) or Osteocolla, as we can do from Wine, or Vitriol; or that the Mercury (for Example) of Gold or Saturn would be perfectly of the same Nature with that of Harts-horn; and that the sulphur of Antimony would be but Numerically different from the Distill’d butter or oyle of Roses.
But suppose (sayes Eleutherius) that you should meet with Chymists, who would allow you to take in Earth and Water into the number of the principles of Mixt Bodies; and being also content to change the Ambiguous Name of Mercury for that more intelligible one of spirit, should consequently make the principles of Compound Bodies to be Five; would you not think it something hard to reject so plausible an Opinion, only because the Five substances into which the Fire divides mixt Bodies are not exactly pure, and Homogeneous? For my part (Continues Carneades) I cannot but think it somewhat strange, in case this Opinion be not true, that it should fall out so luckily, that so great a Variety of Bodies should be Analyz’d by the Fire into just five Distinct substances; which so little differing from the Bodies that bear those names, may so Plausibly be call’d Oyle, Spirit, Salt, Water, and Earth.