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of Matter, the Qualities, that difference particular Bodies, result: whence it may be rationally concluded, that one kind of Bodies may be transmuted into another; that being in effect no more, than that one Parcel of the Universal Matter, wherein all Bodies agree, may have a Texture produced in it, like the Texture of some other Parcel of Matter, common to them both.
To this Hypothesis, is subjoin'd an Examination of the Scholastick opinion of Substantial Forms; where the Author, First, States the Controversie; next gives the Principal reasons, that move him to oppose that Opinion; then, answers the Main arguments employed to evince it; further, assigns both the First Cause of Forms (God;) and the Grand Second Cause thereof (Local Motion:) and lastly, proves the Mechanical Production of Forms; grounding his proof; partly upon the Manner, by which such a Convention of Accidents, as deserve to pass for a Form, may be produced; as that the Curious Shapes of Salts (believed to be the admirablest Effects and strongest Proofs of Substantial Forms) may be the Results of Texture; Art being able to produce Vitriol as well as Nature: partly, upon the possibility of Reproducing Bodies by skill, that have been deprived of their reputed Substantial Forms: Where he alledges the Redintegration of Saltpetre, succesfully performed by himself; though his Attempts, made upon the dissipation and re-union of Amber, Allum, Sea-Salt, and Vitriol, proved (by reason of accidental hindrances rather, than of any impossibility in the Nature of the Thing) less succesful.
In the Second and Historical Part, the Author, appealing to the Testimony of Nature, to verifie his Doctrine, sets down, both some Observations, of what Nature does without being over-ruled by the power and skill of man; and some Experiments, wherein Nature is guided, and as it were, mastered by Art.
1.The First is taken from what happens in the Hatching of
