surface or a portion of a Sphaeral surface is because the inequality of the visual beams between the Eye and the several luminous points is not so proportionate as to be discernable by our ordinary sight for without such inequality to be discerned in the visual beams neither sense nor reason can conceive true Idea's of a spheral surface And upon these Hypotheses and principles all phaenomena's concerning the Moons shapes as to magnitude proportion continuance situation alteration alternation being perpetually and accurately solved the Novelty which would dethrone this doctrine so apparent so rational and unconvincible of the Antients as it is unworthy the acceptance of the considerate and judicious so it cannot but be unmeet for them to impose and obtrude upon others to omit the grosse inconsistency involved in it which I shall in my next at large unfold if these things fall short of giving Satisfaction The third Answer That there are fresh watersprings at the bottoms of the most antient seas Whether Mercury by frequent transhaping it self and often reduction loose not somwhat of its powers and virtues That the Doctrine and being of the four Elements as unmixed bodies by their mixture making up all other bodies is not unquestionable In the four Elements may be allowed to be the general and most common lodges of the Worlds first Elements but themselves at the most can but be allowed to be only secondary Elements How nature may so ballance the first or second Elements by some special Symbolical properties among them as to elude all the endeavours which art can possibly make for the bringing of the first Elements to view and light That the number of the four Elements and of their properties or qualities singly or in Conjugations ascribed to them seemeth insufficient to vest them in the right of first Elements upon the knowledge of whose natures all Physical phaenomena should be capable of explication That the antients seem to have allowed a greater number of first Elements A conjecture what the antients might rationally at first design at their first introducing the Doctrine of the four Elements SIR THat fresh water springs lye at the bottom of the seas both frequent and with flashing issues is to me upon several observations not undiligently made as absolutely certain as to you it seems impossible and this I judge not only in the seas which have made inchroachments by inundation upon the antient bounders of lands which before were plenteously up and down watered with springs but as well there being the like reason in those seas which are able to plead the highest and most antient praescription and cannot be any other wayes chargeable then in their dayly fluxes and refluxes with the least new invading of the earths bosome and of those wells of coldboiling-natural nectar with which it is usually there stored And why should natures opening a vein of freshwater into the sea seem such a sea monster when at land we ordinarily meet with divers springs of different virtues and originals meeting at after together in the same channel from their concourse and mixture conceiving secret virtues manifest alterations and special properties as strange to the illiterate and unexperienced and generally wondered at by the most as the boiling heat appearing presently in the suddenly mixt Oyles of Tartar and Vitriol though cold when poured together I shall not urge that some would have the seas proportionately to their depth fresh at the bottom I only move if this be not more easy to be assented to then what is dayly seen and therefore not to be questioned in point of truth that the sea fishes c. Though continually living in that briny pickle remain still however fresh many times the sea-fowle that most-what fly but about it sometimes swim in the surface of it senting and tasting much stronger of the sea than the fish that live deep and constant in it But Experience being the grand Umpiress in the Question in assurance of its convictiveness I forbear at present For your reducing of Mercury after all operations of fire whether actual or potential upon it I have no reason to cherish suspitions of the truth of such performances but that reduction shall be so perfect as to give back the Mercury as absolute in all virtues as it was or could at first be delivered will not be easily consented to by those that know that fire burns the chief wing upon which in Amalgames Mercury carryes along with it Gold and the force of fire upon it is in the nature of a rape robbing it of that virgin treasure to which the noble mettal is so sequacious which once lost can never be restored again to the defloured Mercury as in all volatiles that which is of nimblest wing flyes first and the highest spirit first and when an impregnation is to be made by fire the work of Philosophy is judged chiefly to lye in the governing of the firing that like the Sun it may give enlivening heat and not become as a destroying Element The reason why so few are acquainted with the excellency and praerogative of this pure Mercury is because generally it is a fire-burnt Mercury which is at first delivered to us I omit that in a thousand instances after Art has separated the natural union of parts though it may again unite them yet that re-union will in many points fall short of the first natural union But why does it seem so monstrous to you to call in Question the existence of the four Elements it being a doctrine which in all Ages has been attended with doubts if you think you can shew as Air and Earth and water yet what shew can you make of Elemental fire And since the dissolution of the Orbes there being no Concave of the Moon what region is designed and intended for it I presume both Hearths and Altars are too low to be the proper Sphaere of this high Element And upon the whole as little can be said for any of the other three as for this the State of the Question and controversie being rightly understood For it is not fire that is denied or Earth or Ayr or water but all as Elemental How great a share and proportion these have in making up this part of the worlds systeme is too evident to sense to be called in Question many leagues of Earth or sea answering to each single degree but that these four are the first uncompounded compounding bodies of which all others by their mixtion consist and are made seems from hence to follow by a very sickly consequence Not without solid consideration and sufficient cause did the Antients honour the Earth with the style of the All-feeding-Earth what innumerable vegetables and Animals spring live and grow in its bosome not to touch at the inestimable treasures lodged in its bowels Others and of the worlds sages with honours not unequal assign unto the water not only Beauty's birth but the Rise and original of all things
and every moment convinceth the use and necessity of Air c. These are Arguments of their universal use concern and excellency but do not prove their Elementalness no more then that one Tree is the Element of another because the one is engrafted into the other or that the mother is the Element of the child while it lives annexed unto her in the womb That in these are the general and most common Lodges of the worlds Elements from which each nature may furnish it self with what is convenient for its being nutrition and growth may easily be consented unto but that these are the very Elements unmixed and uncompounded will be an Herculean task to make forth by any Argument or experience so long as each in its region appears replenished with all variety of Beings What a numerous diversity of Earths are to be found in the Earth of diverse colours weights virtues some healing some scouring some binding some Alexipharmical besides chalkes and Marles and several clayes sands and gravels noble quarries rich mines coals bitumes marcasites salts minerals and metals so in water all coagulable vapours and exhalations meet condensed with the alluvion and dissolution of various salts and other minerals together with manifold subterraneous Oyles and spirits whence the wonderful difference of their weights sents colours tasts consistence and operations In like manner the Air what is it but an uncertain unconstant randome composition of all sorts of fumes and vapours according to the nature and position of the Atomes dispersed in it sometimes clear sometimes cloudy sometimes healthful sometimes pestilent sometimes delighting at other times offending the senses And as difficult will it be to find and shew any uncompounded Fire But you will say that though these be not Elemental Earth Fire Aire and Water it hinders not but there may be such Beings and bodies I answer I have no abhorrency against the opinion if so by any practice or in any dissolution these Elements could but be shewn and their sufficiency to explain the phaenomena of nature but those parts which generally in dissolutions are offered to be accepted for these Elements appear nothing lesse and beyond all dispute very distant from uncompounded natures and the analogous parts in several dissolutions as different one from another as one of the Elements can be from another Element which is repugnant to the nature of first Elements as is usually and truly urged against salts sulphures and Mercuries to put by their claim in first Elementarinesse in the mixtion of bodies Viz. that in several dissolutions the analogous parts answer not in the least one to another except it be in some very general and external conformity but one is sowr another sweet another sharp another faelid another fragrant thus expanding into all manner of variety wherein should be nothing but the pure simplicity of a first Element In a good sense and with fair Explications I have been ever ready to acknowledge their interest as secondary Elements as a doctrine consentaneons to the Sacred Traditions of Theology or as before as the principal Lodges of the first Elements but neither that which fils the regions nor that which remains after their dissolution of mixed bodies could ever yet to me seem capable of the denomination of first Elements And possibly it may be one of natures mysteries never to permit us to see the first Elements naked so curiously ballancing them in their connexions that all attempts of Art for their discovery shall be eluded so any Artifice to resolve and anatomize a natural body into its first principles grounded upon the fixedness and volatility of the parts is eluded if first or second Elements of the same fixednes or volatility be connexed so if grounded upon dissolubleness in a certain Menstrue it is eluded by connexing several first or second Elements aequally dissoluble in that or the like Menstrue so corrosious by separatories fumigating anointing cementing are all eluded as to the bolting forth of the first Elements if they meet with several first or other Elements aequally passible in those operations And the very number of the Elements has not seldom rendered them unto me very suspitious that they could not be first Elements For by what fair Argument shal the Quaternion of them be demonstrated if as is usual we argue from qualities whether singular or in symbolismes I see not how this number can be maintained more qualities and more conjugations of them ought by the same reason to prove a far greater number of Elements And alas how vainly light do they render themselves that by four conjugations of disputable qualities seek to solve all the phaenomena which are in the world of the Loadstones pointing northward its drawing untoucht steel the Load-touched steels drawing of other steel the bleeding of the slain at the presence of the Murtherer the moving of an untouched Lute-string being Unison or in a strong consonancy string that is moved the sinking of persons drowned the first dayes and then floating to the top at after they have layd soaking so long in the water the Cramp fishes astonishing the Fishers hand at the long distance of line and Angle the strange Ebbings and flowings of particular seas and springs and a thousand other Upon the old principles how lame is the doctrine of solidness and fluidness of opacity and transparency in bodies sometimes of the same solidnes sometimes of the same fluidnes besides a million of other instances whose resolution mateth the doctrine of the four Elements However mis-understand me not as if I denied Elements or first Elements these must either be allowed or no mixtion of which we have lucide examples in every corner of the world for it was a Golden-rule in the school which now I am opposing that the same or like as so working upon the same or like as so cannot make any alteration that I suppose I have good reason not to be forward to embrace the new received opinion so much cherished by some persons of Eminency and parts that there is only one Element of all things licked into several external shapes and forms But this controversy not concerning your judgment it were trouble now to pursue an impertinent The rest I suppose any where defensible save at Stagira where Fire must burn Air poyson Earth bury and water drown whatsoever shall be suspected in or alleadged against the Traditions of the imperial Philosopher However my thoughts are still comported to yield up themselves to that doctrine upon the first clear and experimental demonstration of it if any such might be hoped In the interim I want not fair footsteppings in the Antients to induce me to think that when they make Bodies to be composed of that which is hot and that which is cold of that which is dry and of that which is moyst they mean nothing less then these four bodies or rather vast Amassements vulgarly now known by the name of the four Elements but they rather
be denied by the observant who almost every where under ground find lesser veins of water dispersed up and down the Body of the Earth and in many places large concealed Rivers elsewhere unfathomable Vaults and Abysses Sometime seen Rivers in their proper and perpetual Channels make a dark course and discharge of their waters into the unseen Bowels of the Earth Upon the whole in the method of this explication waters are in the same manner secretly within the Earth raised to the top of the Mountains in which to our view they are raised in the open Air to those regions from whence they fall back again upon us in the form of rain And in such vapid exhalations it cannot be denied but in some places and at some times the Mountain springs ranging in a much higher level may by possibility be furnished from the percolated sea-sea-water but as the possibility of this is admitted so the universal and absolute necessity of it may not be averred it seeming hard to say that the Mountain-springs what distance soever from the Sea have no other way of being furnished but only from thence And I suppose it will as uneasily obtain credit that the Sea should run as fast every way under the Earth to the Originals of Springs as the Springs generally do in seeking out their way unto the Sea I doubt not but besides the Seas there are under the earth many other liquors contributing to the origination of Springs some having their first rise from dissolution others from condensation whence and from the passages thorough which they run and are percolated rise very often those special vertues and dangers of some peculiar Springs and sometimes in a seeming praeposterous way though very consentaneous to the true nature of things Springs adjoyning to the Sea are fresh and at a vast distance from the Sea in in-land Countreys sometimes salt But besides both the Seas those other waters bred under the earth it s more than probable the rains falling down in showers from Heaven adde not a little to the flushing and continuance of the Springs So medical Springs after rains are noted for a while to be of less virtue and in long droughts 't is usual for very many Springs to be quite dried up till rains fall again and where by long obscure dens caverns and passages under ground access may be had to subterraneous Rivers such Rivers though lying vastly deep under the Earths surface they are sound to swell at after rains and by their accession unto the wonted stream frequently do make a most hideous and horrid noise full of terrour to those in the Caveâ— mouth and at other times unusual From all which seriously and impartially weighed is made undeniably apparent that rains in no contemptible proportion furnish forth matter to be ordinarily by channelly veins convey'd or else extraordinarily by a natural distillation wrought up into the Springs And as this much discussed Question is resolved in these easie things every where offering themselves to view in Nature so I doubt not upon the same principles might also many other things seeming at first sight to be very mysterious in the concern of Springs as that which with so much admiration is by the rude ignorant people cryed up and observed in some having as they term it their Ebbings and Flowings in such irregular frequency as by no art can possibly be reduced to any certainty of account or order for the more special and clear observing of which they are wont to receive the water from the Spring into some stone or such like vessel proportionately bored in or near the bottom all which in truth is without any retrogradation and reciprocation of motion in its channelly veins being nothing else but an inaequality of the waters issuing from the Spring in equal times either by reason of its more plenteous filling at some times the channelly veins of the Spring as it passeth or else by reason it passeth with a greater or lesser impetus or possibly in some cases and places upon both grounds which what it hath in it that is more admirable than the running of any ordinary Brook sometimes with a fuller channel sometimes with a stronger stream I do not yet understand and how easily upon the former principles this is explicable any one may readily perceive that we may more justly wonder how some grave Authors came to be so transported with the sight or fame of some such springs occurring up and down in the World as in their reports to offer them to the thoughts of distant Students and succeeding times as containing in them little less than miracle And if the studious would observe diligently what is in nature possibly many other things seemingly as intricate might be capable of as easie explications especially considering the vast way a Spring may run under the Earth before it break forth fairly insinuated to us by the pure fresh water Springs bursting up a great way within the floud marks of the Sea clearly intimating to us how two Hills at a considerable distance may both be concerned in the same Spring and its Course And whereas we number and place Springs ac-according as we observe them to break forth and shew themselves unto the day in the true aestimate and upon laborious search it hath many times appeared quite otherwise that the original of the Spring has been at a great distance from the eruption and the eruption has not been till after the confluction and meeting of it may be three or four several Springs every one carrying in it sometimes the dissolution sometimes the spirit or somewhat of the first rudiments of some special Mineral and altogether make up not seldome an almost inimitable composition Your other Quaery concerning Chymical Multiplication or the distilling of Water from a Pint to a Quart if my Genius fail me not when rightly proposed and understood cannot want some affinity with the matters we have already been treating of For if any would impose that the same Water as by way of expansion without other additional water or matter might by distillation be brought to a double treble and so a thousand times as large dimensions as before as Wines Vinegars and other Liquors have in them without any further addition so much Phlegme and so much Spirit of such a strength whether fixed or volatile it would require a very credulous judgement to allow the veracity or possibility of such a Probleme and I am clearly free to disown the skill or power of any such Chymistry which once admitted were it not for the shortness of humane life and the hopelesness of obtaining Vessels and Instruments large enough for the work and conveniency to place them the world might be in danger of Drowning from the lofty Artist as once it was hypothetically threatned with shaking by the noble and ingenious Mechanist But I had rather understand a Probleme favourably so as it may carry truth possibility and reason along