Chyme

“ For we see that the Chymists will not allow the Aristotelians that the Salt in Ashes ought to be called Earth, though the Saline and Terrestrial part symbolize in weight, in dryness, in fixness and fusibility, only because the one is sapid and dissoluble in Water, and the other not : Besides, we see that sapidness and volatility are wont to denominate the Chymists Mercury or Spirit ; and yet how many Bodies, think you, may agree in those Qualities which may yet be of very differing natures, and disagree in qualities either more numerous, or more considerable, or both. ”

“ To all which I may add, that since it appears, by what I observ’d to you of the permanency of Gold and Silver, that even Corpuscles that are not of an Elementary but compounded Nature, may be of so durable a Texture, as to remain indissoluble in the ordinary Analysis that Chymists make of Bodies by the Fire; ’Tis not impossible but that, though there were but three Elements, yet there may be a greater number of Bodies, which the wonted wayes of Anatomy will not discover to be no Elementary Bodies. ”

“ And first, I have partly noted above, that though Chymists pretend from some to draw salt, from others running Mercury, and from others a Sulphur; Yet they have not hitherto taught us by any way in us among them to separate any one principle, whether Salt, Sulphur, or Mercury, from all sorts of Minerals without exception. And thence I may be allow’d to conclude that there is not any of the Elements that is an Ingredient of all Bodies, since there are some of which it is not so. ”

“ And how little does the Chymist teach the Philosopher of the Nature of Purgatition, if he only tells him that the Purgative Vertue of Medicines resides in their Salt? For, besides that this must not be conceded without Limitation, since the purging parts of many Vegetables Extracted by the Water wherein they are infus’d, are at most but such compounded Salts, (I mean mingl’d with Oyle, and Spirit, and Earth, as Tartar and divers other Subjects of the Vegetable Kingdom afford;) ”

“ And I have (pursues Carne (297) ades) something wonder’d, Chymists should not consider, that there is scarce any body in Nature so permanent and indissoluble as Glass; which yet themselves teach us may be made of bare Ashes, brought to fusion by the meer Violence of the Fire; so that, since Ashes are granted to consist but of pure Salt and simple Earth, sequestred from all the other Principles or Elements, they must acknowledge, That even Art it self can of two Elements only, or, if you please, one Principle and one Element, compound a Body more durable then almost any in the World. ”

“ And I will begin with reminding you of the Experiments I not long since related to you concerning the growth of pompions, mint, and other vegetables, out of fair water. For by those experiments its seems evident, that Water may be Transmuted into all the other Elements; from whence it may be inferr’d, both, That ’tis not every Thing Chymists will call Salt, Sulphur, or Spirit, that needs alwayes be a Primordiate and Ingenerable body. And that Nature may contex a Plant (though that be a perfectly mixt Concrete) without having all the Elements previously presented to her to compound it of. ”

“ But, to proceed to what I was going to say, You may observe with me, Eleutherius, that, as I told You once before, Qualities sleight enough may serve to Denominate a Chymical Principle. For, when they anatomize a compound Body by the Fire, if they get a Substance inflamable, and that will not mingle with Water, that they presently call Sulphur; what is sapid and Dissoluble in Water, that must pass for Salt; Whatsoever is (227) fix’d and indissoluble in Water, that they name Earth. ”

“ For if You but consider a piece of green-Wood burning in a Chimney, You will readily discern in the disbanded parts of it the four Elements, of which we teach It and other mixt bodies to be compos’d. The fire discovers it self in the flame by its own light; the smoke by ascending to the top of the chimney, and there readily vanishing into air, like a River losing it self in the Sea, sufficiently manifests to what Element it belongs and gladly returnes. The water in its own form boyling and hissing at the ends of the burning Wood betrayes it self to more then one of our senses ”

“ You know enough chemistry to realize that everything—water, air, food, all things which we use in every-day life—are merely combinations of certain simple elements. As you have seen me, by means of an electric current, decompose a jar of pure water into its two component parts,—two molecules of hydrogen to every molecule of oxygen,—so you can bring these same elements together in the gaseous state ”

“ Indeed the Chymists have not yet been able to procure a Saline Substance, by combining earth and water together. This favours a suspicion, that, besides these two, there is some other principle in the composition of salts, which escapes our researches, because we cannot preserve it when we decompose them; but it is sufficient to our purpose, that water and earth are demonstrably amongst the real principles of Saline Substances, and that no experiment hath ever shewn us any other. ”

“ For when Wood being burnt in a Chimney is dissipated by the Fire into Smoke and Ashes, that smoke composes soot, which is so far from being any one of the principles of the Wood, that (as I noted above) you may by a further Analysis separate five or six distinct substances from it. And as for the remaining Ashes, the Chymists themselves teach us, that by a further degree of fire they may be indissolubly united into glass. ’Tis true, that the A (221) nalysis which the Chymists principally build upon is made, not in the open air, but in close Vessels ”

“ 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, (83) Nay, from which they can Unquestionably Separate so much as any One of their Hypostatical Principles ”

“ What does the knowing that Salt, sulphur and Mercury, are the Principles of Mixt Bodies, informe us of the Nature of that vast, fluid, and Ætherial Substance, that seemes to make up the interstellar, and consequently much the greatest part of the World? for as for (301) the opinion commonly ascrib’d to Paracelsus, as if he would have not only the four Peripatetick Elements, but even the Celestial parts of the Universe to consist of his three Principles, since the modern Chymists themselves have not thought so groundless a conceit worth their owning, I shall not think it Worth my confuting. ”

“ The philosophy of the chymist is of every-day make. It assumes different species of matter; chymical matter and matter not chymical; attractions innumerable, such as chymical, electric, galvanic, capillary, and attraction of cohesion; likewise magnetic forces, chymical affinities, and affections of matter—"while as yet there is none of them"—matter being inert naturally. To mechanical nature the entire is useless and foreign, and their value lies solely in being terms of professional application in the highly important chymical art ”

“ And that which I would have you peculiarly Consider on this Occasion is, that not only in Chymicall Anatomies there is a Separation made of the Elementary Ingredients, but that some Mixt Bodies afford a very much greater Quantity of this or that Element or Principle than of another ; as we see, that Turpentine and Amber yield much more Oyl and Sulphur than they do Water, whereas Wine, which is confess’d to be a perfectly mixt Bodie, yields but a little Inflamable Spirit, or Sulphur, and not much more Earth ”

“ But confining our selves to such wayes of Analyzing mix’d Bodies, as are already not unknown to Chymists, it may without Absurdity be Question’d, whether besides those grosser Elements of Bodies, which they call Salt Sulphur and Mercury, there may not be Ingredients of a more Subtile Nature, which being extreamly little, and not being in themselves Visible, may escape unheeded at the Junctures of the Destillatory Vessels, though never so carefully Luted. ”

“ But as for the Chymists, what they can mean, with congruity to their own Principles, by the Mercury of Animals and Vegetables, ’twill not be so easie to find out ; for they ascribe Tasts only to the Saline Principle, and consequently would be much put to it to shew what Liquor it is, in the Resolution of Bodies, that not being insipid, for that they call Phlegme, neither is inflamable as Oyle or Sulphur, nor has any Tast ; which according to them must proceed from a Mixture, at least, of Salt. ”

“ And some of them ascribe to Mercury, Colours; as all of them do effumability, as they speak. And on the other side, it is evident that Volatility belongs in common to all the three Principles, and to Water too. For ’tis manifest, that Chymical Oyles are Volatile; That also divers Salts Emerging, upon the Analysis of many Concretes, are very Volatile, is plain from the figitiveness of Salt, of Harts-horne, flesh, &c. ascending in the Distillation of those bodies. How easily water may be made to ascend in Vapours, there is scarce any body that has not observ’d. ”

“ For from them there seems also Deducible something that Subverts an other Foundation of the Chymical Doctrine. For since that (as we have seen) out of fair Water alone, not only Spirit, but Oyle, and Salt, and Earth may be Produced; It will follow that Salt and Sulphur are not Primogeneal Bodies, and principles, since they are every Day made out of plain Water by the Texture which the Seed or Seminal principle of plants puts it into. ”

“ Experience dayly teacheth us also divers kinds of changes and refinings by Fire; why is it not possible in metals by an expert Chymist having skill in them? Who would believe that a live bird lurks in an egg, and an hearb having leaves, flowers, and odour, in the seed? Why may not then abortive metals, getting not yet perfection, be perfected by Art, with help of Fire? Is not an unripe apple or pear ripened by the heat of the Sun? Which some curious and industrious men observing, have imitated nature in their works ”

“ Since what I have now said may sufficiently evince, that the Fire may sometimes as well alter Bodies as divide them, and by it we may obtain from a Mixt Body what was not Pre-existent in it. And how are we sure that in no other Body what we call Phlegme is barely separated, not Produc’d by the Action of the Fire : Since so many other Mixt Bodies are of a much less Constant, and more alterable Nature, then Mercury, by many Tricks it is wont to put upon Chymists, and by the Experiments I told You of, about an hour 136since, Appears to be. ”

“ Let us for a moment consider this fluid we call water, especially sea water. Chemically speaking, pure water is one of the rarest things—that is, water absolutely free from all foreign matter, divested of everything save hydrogen and oxygen in the combining proportions, by weight one part of hydrogen to eight of oxygen; by volume, two of hydrogen to one of oxygen, we have pure water—an oxide of hydrogen. But absolutely pure water must be prepared in a vacuum, and it must never have contact with air of any kind. ”

“ What this uniformity precisely is, how we grow in the knowledge of it from generation to generation, these are questions which for the present we lay aside, being content to examine two instances which may serve to make plainer the nature of the rule.
From certain observations made with the spectroscope, we infer the existence of hydrogen in the sun. By looking into the spectroscope when the sun is shining on its slit, we see certain definite bright lines: and experiments made upon bodies on the earth have taught us that when these bright lines are seen hydrogen is the source of them. ”

“ That common Earth and Water frequently do so, notwithstanding the received contrary opinion, is not deny’d by the more wary of the moderne Peripateticks themselves: and certainly, most Earths are much lesse simple bodies then is commonly imagined even by Chymists, who do not so consideratly to prescribe and employ Earths Promiscuously in those distillations that require the mixture of some caput mortuum, to hinder the flowing together of the matter, and to retain its grosser parts. For I have found some Earths to yield by distillation a Liquor very far from being inodorous or insipid ”

“ But that which I would rather have here observ’d, is, That the Chymists I am now in debate with have given up the Liberty You challeng’d for them, of using Names at Pleasure, and confin’d Themselves by their Descriptions, though but such as they are, of their Principles; so that although they might freely have call’d any thing their Analysis presents them with, either Sulphur, or Mercury, or Gas, or Blas, or what they pleas’d; yet when they have told me that Sulphur (for instance) is a Primogeneal and simple Body, Inflamable, Odorous, &c. ”

“ Nearly all the fluids, and solids also, used for procuring artificial light, such as naptha, various oils, tallow, wax, spermaceti, spirits of wine, ether, etc., are compounds of carbon and hydrogen in different proportions, with the occasional addition of some other elements, especially oxygen and hydrogen, in the proportions to form water; as a general rule, those bodies containing the greatest proportion of carbon give the most light, though not necessarily the most heat. ”