been fixt. So that if our Chymists will not reject the solemn and repeated Testimony of a Person, who cannot but be acknowledg’d for one of the greatest Spagyrists that they can boast of, they must not deny that there is to be found in Nature another Agent able to Analyze compound Bodies less violently, and both more genuinely and more universally than the Fire. And for my own part, though I cannot but say on this Occasion what (you know) our Friend Mr. Boyle is wont to say, when he is askt his Opinion of any strange Experiment; That He that hath seen it hath more Reason to beleeve it, than He that hath not, yet I have found Helmont so faithful a Writer, even in divers of his improbable Experiments (I alwayes except that Extravagant Treatise De Magnetica Vulnerū Curatione, which some of his Friends affirm to have been first publish’d by his Enemies) that I think it somewhat harsh to give him the Lye, especially to what he delivers upon his own proper Tryal. And I have heard from very credible Eye-witnesses some things, and seen some others my self, which argue so strongly, that a circulated Salt, or a Menstruum
