But to proceed to a new Proposition.
Propos. III.I shall not peremptorily deny, that from most of such mixt Bodies as partake either of Animal or Vegetable Nature, there may by the Help of the Fire, be actually obtain’d a determinate number (whether Three, Four or Five, or fewer or more) of Substances, worthy of differing Denominations.
Of the Experiments that induce me to make this Concession, I am like to have occasion enough to mention several in the prosecution of my Discourse. And therefore, that I may not hereafter be oblig’d to trouble You and my self with needless Repetitions, I shall now only desire you to take notice of such Experiments, when they shall be mention’d, and in your thoughts referre them hither.
To these three Concessions I have but this Fourth to add, That
Propos. IV.It may likewise be granted, that those distinct Substances, which Concretes generally either afford or are made up of, may without very much Inconvenience be call’d the Elements or Principles of them.
When I said, without very much Inconvenience , I had in my Thoughts that sober Admonition of Galen , Cum de re constat, de verbis non est Litigandum . And therefore also I scruple not to say Elements or Principles , partly because the Chymists are wont to call the Ingredients of mixt Bodies, Principles , as the Aristotelians name them Elements ; I would here exclude neither. And, partly, because it seems doubtfull whether the same Ingredients may not be call’d Principles ? as not being compounded of any more primary Bodies: and Elements , in regard that all mix’d Bodies are compounded of them. But I thought it requisite to limit my Concession by premising the words, very much , to the word Inconvenience , because that though the Inconvenience of calling the distinct Substances, mention’d in the Proposition Elements or Principles , be not very great, yet that it is an Impropriety of Speech, and