The Fifth Part.

But I should perchance forgive the Hypothesis I have been all this while examining, if, though it reaches but to a very little part of the World, it did at least give us a satisfactory account of those things to which ’tis said to reach. But I find not, that it gives us any other then a very imperfect information even about mixt Bodies themselves: For how will the knowledge of the Tria Prima discover to us the Reason, why the Loadstone drawes a Needle and disposes it to respect the Poles, and yet seldom precisely points at them? how will this Hypothesis teach Us how a Chick is formed in the Egge, or how the Seminal Principles of Mint, Pompions, and other Vegitables, that I mention’d to You above, can fashion Water into Various Plants, each of them endow’d with its peculiar and determinate shape, and with divers specifick and discriminating Qualities? How does this Hypothesis shew us, how much Salt, how much Sulphur, and how much Mercury must be taken to make a Chick or a Pompion? and if We know that, what Principle is it, that manages these Ingredients, and contrives (for instance) such Liquors as the White and Yelk of an Egge into such a variety of Textures as is requisite to fashion the Bones, Veines, Arteries, Nerves, Tendons, Feathers, Blood, and other parts of a Chick; and not only to fashion each Limbe, but to connect them altogether, after that manner that is most congruous to the perfection of the Animal which is to Consist of Them? For to say, that some more fine and subtile part of either or all the Hypostatical Principles is the Director in all this business, and the Architect of all this Elaborate structure, is to give one occasion to demand again, what proportion and way of mixture of the Tria Prima afforded this Architectonick Spirit, and what Agent made so skilful and happy a mixture? And the Answer to this Question, if the Chymists will keep themselves within their three Principles, will be lyable to the same Inconvenience, that the Answer to the former was. And if it were not to intrench upon the Theame of a Friend of ours here present, I could easily prosecute the Imperfections of the Vulgar Chymists Philosophy, and shew you, that by going about to explicate by their three Principles, I