First, That Many of the Instances I Propos’d in the Preceding Discourse are Such, that the Objection we are Considering will not at all Reach Them. For Fire can no more with the Assistance of Water than without it Separate any of the Three Principles, either from Gold, Silver, Mercury, or some Others of the Concretes named Above.
Hence We may Inferre, That Fire is not an Universal Analyzer of all Mixt Bodies, since of Metals and Minerals, wherein Chymists have most Exercis’d Themselves, there Appear scarce Any which they are able to Analyze by Fire, Nay, from which they can Unquestionably Separate so much as any One of their Hypostatical Principles; Which may well Appear no small Disparagement as well to their Hypothesis as to their Pretensions.
It will also remain True, notwithstanding the Objection, That there may be Other Wayes than the wonted Analysis by Fire, to Separate from a Compound Body Substances as Homogeneneous as those that Chymists Scruple not to Reckon among their Tria Prima (as some of them, for Brevity Sake, call their Three Principles.)
And it Appears, That by Convenient Additaments such Substances may be Separated by the Help of the Fire, as could not be so by the Fire alone: Witness the Sulphur of Antimony.
And Lastly, I must Represent, That since it appears too that the Fire is but One of the Instruments that must be Employ’d in the Resolution of Bodies, We may Reasonably Challenge the Liberty of doing Two Things. For when ever any Menstruum or other Additament is Employ’d, together with the Fire to Obtain a Sulphur or a Salt from a Body, We may well take the Freedom to Examine, whether or no That Menstruum do barely Help to Separate the Principle Obtain’d by It, or whether there